My Engine is Overheating

We have two separate issues the overheating and inop blower fan.We need to start with why it overheated.When it overheated how did you know it did?

Did it boil over the radiator cap or did it say it was overhearing on the temp gauge? Also was the radiator fan on when it overheated because a blown head gasket can make the fan not work. lets go over these guides to see if we can fix it.

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/engine-overheating-or-running-hot

and

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/head-gasket-blown-test

Please run down these guides and report back.

My daughter was driving it. She was parked but had the car running in park. After about 10 minutes or so it started spewing antifreeze out of antifreeze reserve tank on passenger side of engine. She said the temp gauge never went up past 210 before she turned it off. I have driven it several times in the last couple days but never had it idling for more than a traffic light. I read online that ac blower and cooling fans are tied into each other...is that true?

If your talking about the ac condenser fan then yes its tied into the radiator fan.But not the inside blower fan that blows the air inside the car.Is the fan that is inop the one that blows air inside the car?

As far as the coolant blowing all over the ground an the temp it read on the gauge I would replace the radiator cap.Sounds like it could just be a week radiator cap not holding the proper pressure.Also do you have a multi meter to do some testing?

Yes the blower for the inside does not work at all. Then two days later it overheats while idling. They have to be linked right? And she did not here the cooling fan come on before it overheated....

No I don't have a tester....so what about ac blower not working?

It only got up to 210 on the gauge that's not hot enough to boil over a good radiator cap.Also the inside blower has nothing to do with the cooling system for the engine.You will need a multi meter to do some testing to trouble shoot the inop blower fan.Do you have manual ac controls or auto climate control?

I have the manual controls. And the indicator lights work just no blower

Alright we still need a multi meter or we would have to start guessing and I don't like to guess and guessing gets expensive.

Ok thanks.

Your welcome.

At first my car started overheating, I automatically assumed it was the head gasket but when I check the oil it wasn't whitish or watery, so I took it to a mechanic who said that I needed a new sensor and thermostat. After, replacing both my car continued to overheat then it started to leak coolant from the water pump area, so I replaced the water pump. Then I went to test drive it and it overheated so I returned to the mechanic who said I needed a new radiator. I currently replaced the radiator last Friday and it continuos to overheat! Could anybody suggest what's wrong with my car, instead of me spending a ton of money on unnecessary parts.

First of all, under what conditions does the overheating occur? Speeds, how long does it take, etc. Do you hear the radiator fan turning on?

Milky oil is not the most common result of a leaking cylinder head gasket. Coolant getting into an oil passage won't result in overheating. It's much more common for coolant to get sucked into the combustion chamber and burned. You'll be losing coolant and you might see white smoke from the tail pipe.

There's two tests you can do to verify a leaking head gasket. If you're losing coolant very slowly, add a small bottle of dark purple dye to the coolant, then search a day later with a black light. The dye will show up as a bright yellow stain that you can follow back to the source. If you find it inside the tail pipe, suspect the head gasket.

You can also have your mechanic perform a chemical test at the radiator. With the engine running, you draw air from the radiator through a glass cylinder with two chambers partially-filled with a special dark blue liquid. If combustion gases are present, the liquid will turn bright yellow.

Are you sure you burped all the air out of the system? Do you have heat out of the vents at idle?

@Caradiodoc it overheats either way when drive or when parked (with the engine on). Before I got everything replaced it wouldn't take long but now I can make it out of my neighborhood. I forgot to mention I watched it for white smoke and leaked at the tail pipe, didn't see any but a little coolant leaking.
@JohnnyT73 I'm not sure if they burped all the air out of the system and nope, no heat just cool air.

If you do not have heat at idle then you are either low on coolant or you still havery air in the system. Remove the pressure cap to the radiator. Start engine with heat on. Top off with coolant. Let it run tI'll it warms up. I think you shold have one or two 8mm bleeder screws. One at the thermostat area and the other on the bypass pipe near the valve cover. Open them up and raise the rpm to about 2500 and hold it for about 5 seconds (you will have to do that a few times). Keep your eye on the coolant level in the radiator and temp reading. Continue to add coolant till you see a steady stream come out of the bleeder screw(s) then snug them down. Check to make sure you have heat at idle. Top off coolant and you should be good to go.

Hey sorry for the late response I've been busy working. Okay I did all of that and the heat came on and went back to blowing cool air. I just noticed my drivers side fan doesn't work..would that be the fan for the a/c or the fan for the radiator? Also this mechanic suggested it might be the intake manifold gasket, but it's no symptoms of it (but overheating)

Hello, this is my moms car, and recently she started having overheating issues. The antifreeze had been disappearing for a couple months, and there were no leaks anywhere below the car. We decided to replace the lower intake gaskets, hoping that was where the antifreeze was going. Now, the antifreeze is always full, so one problem solved. However, now we have another. We replaced the thermostat for her as well, and I think I may have gotten a bad one, or one for a different temperature. Ever since replacing, she has had practically no heat. And the car is still overheating. I can idle the car in the drive way for as long as I want, and it will not overheat. The fans kick on, and the temperature holds steady. I can drive the car for about a mile or a little over and it overheats. It's like clockwork. If I take the same route whenever I test drive it, it overheats at the same street everytime. The coolant is forced out of the reservoir, so I have to refill it. If I turn around, and head towards her house, its downhill most of the way, so I can coast a lot, and it wont overheat as quickly. And I have noticed that when it starts to get hot, if I let off the gas and coast, the temperature will come back down after a minute. And everytime the temp comes down, I will have hot heat for a few minutes. As soon as the temp starts to get hotter, the heat gets colder. I was wondering if a thermostat could cause all of this, or if it might be something else entirely. I replaced the lower radiator hose because it was brittle on the backside and I know they can be sucked shut by the water pump when they are soft. I also replaced the serpentine belt because it was worn. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

It can be as simple as replacing your coolant reservoir cap. If and only if it is not maintaining the 15psi the cooling system requires.

If that doesn't work, you need to have the vehicle pressure-tested leak down tested to see where the coolant is leaking too.

Check your oil. Is it "milky"? If it is, along with your description, you have a tell tale sign of bad head gasket.

There is a Technical Service Bulletin for your situation.

ENGINE RUNNING HOT/OVERHEATING &/OR LOSS OF COOLANT
TECHNICAL SERVICE BULLETIN
Reference Number(s): 00-06-02-001, Date of Issue: January, 2000
Related Ref Number(s): 00-06-02-001
ARTICLE BEGINNING
ENGINE RUNNING HOT, OVERHEATING AND/OR LOSS OF
COOLANT (POLISH RADIATOR FILLER NECK AND REPLACE
RADIATOR CAP)
Model(s): 1999-2000 GM Passenger Cars and Trucks with Composite Radiator End Tank
Section: 06 - Engine/Propulsion System
Bulletin No.: 00-06-02-001
Date: January, 2000
CONDITION
Some customers may comment on one or more of the following conditions:

Engine running hot

Engine overheating, and/or

Loss of coolant/low coolant message

CAUSE
The radiator filler neck may have an imperfection in the sealing surface.

CORRECTION

NOTE: Do not replace the radiator.

Using a piece of 400 grit wet/dry sandpaper backed with a flat piece of wood, polish the filler neck
sealing surface using a circular motion.
Replace the radiator pressure cap with a cap of the same part number as shown in the GM Service
Parts Catalog.

It is. You do not have a filler neck on the reservoir itself. Your only access is through the coolant cap. What they are saying is that the cap cannot seal tight due to the imperfection around the filler neck. Let me know.

Zack

Zack the Malibu is a plastic cap and neck I am having the same problem as him I have replaced my water pump thermostat and reservoir.

Overheating while driving can be from various issues. A small head gasket leak that gets worse under load, bad radiator that cannot circulate enough water to keep the engine cool under load, blocked exhaust system that traps heat and does not let the engine cool down.
A quick test for the radiator is to crank the heater to max and see if the temperature stops rising or maybe goes down. If it does then it is likely an airflow or coolant flow issue through the radiator. On cars with AC the condenser can trap a lot of stuff between it and the radiator and block the air. Another test is to run the car until it gets warm, shut it off and use your hand or an IR thermometer to check that the radiator is the same temperature without any colder areas that would result from blockage.

car overheated (of cource) repl.thermostat now no heat and fans wont come on.what next

you certain fans were working to begin with? could have been reason it overheated...check fuse, relays and engine coolant temp. sensor. also check fan motors with direct 12 v power.

Engine Cooling problem
1999 Chevy Malibu 6 cyl Front Wheel Drive Automatic

I have a 11/99 Malibu. It started to overheat while driving on the highway. I replaced the thermostat and water pump. Tried to flush out the system as best as possible. Blew out the radiator fins. Confirmed that the cooling fans came on at around 220-230 degrees and that they were spinning at a good clip. Replaced the radiator cap and topped off the coolant. Checked for coolant in the crank case and looked for white smoke from the exhaust. I drove the car for 1 hour on back roads at about 40 MPH. No signs of overheating. The next morning the car was driven 5 miles to the highway. Once at highway speed (55 MPH) it overheated again. The coolant is blowing out of the res. overflow tube. Any chance there is some bleeding issue or maby the radiator is partially plugged and can't cool the water while the engine is spinning at faster RPM's while on the highway????

sounds like the cooling fan is comming on or a blown head gasket,or all the air is not out of the coolant sys.

when i bleed the system i first get air from the bleeder then water. Is there a special proceedure to follow to bleed?

i also noticed that the interior heat blows cold when the temp gauge spikes real high then it blows hot when the needle comes back down!

thats a sigh of air in the system,what I do to bleed the sys is open the bleed screw at the housing above the water pump,fill the coolant until it comes out of the bleeder,then start the car with the rad cap off,let it run until the temp gets to about 200 degress,then shut the car off for 3-5 min,it will boil the thermostat open and suck the coolant in from the overflow tank,start it up let it run check the guage,put the heater on hot and full speed,as its running the upper rad hose should be VERY hot which means the t-stat opened. then top it off let it run make sure the coolant fans come on and watch the temp.post back with any other quaetions.

Do you have a pic or diagram where the bleeder screw is at. I see a screw on the housing but it doesn't look like a bleeder screw, but it has a blue paint on top of it.

Not sure on the year of the car cause i am borrowing it but it is in the right range.
the car when you run it will go to maximum heat (like overheating) but then will begin to resume normal operating temperature from there on out.
subsequently, this is happening in conjunction with the heater going out. since it was -10 here this morning i'd like to try and get this straightened out ASAP. the vehicle is also tossing some fluid on the ground whi believe to be coolant.
thanks in advance!
Ryan

fixing the cooolant leak should take care of your heater problems. have the cooling system pressure tested to see where the leak is coming from. could be a water pump or intake gaskets. let me know what you find out.

Engine Cooling problem
1999 Chevy Malibu 6 cyl Front Wheel Drive Automatic

My Car is over heating. Currently the car can sit in one spot for hours and not over heat, when you start to drive the temp will go up and during this time the heat does not work, as I am driving some times the heat comes on and the temp goes down. I have changed the thermostat already. Events that led up to this were. I went into get my oil changed, after the oil change I drove the car for about a hour, it over heated.I then opened the hood to find a squirt bottle stuck in the left side fan. I then removed it from the fan and contacted the shop that changed my oil and brought the car up there. When I got there they promptly said that the bottle could not have caused any damg that would make the car over heat once the bottle had been removed. Also the mechanic switched 2 relays to the fans saying something about polarity. My question is could the bottle have caused the damg causing the car to now over heat, if so what damg is likely the cause. So far I am into the shop for a oil change and 120 for the thermostat, which is what they said was the cause.
Need help on this please
1999 chevy Malibu 160k miles 3100 series motor

Hi:
the bottle could have caused the overheat if you were in traffic, sitting still, moving slowly... As far as the fan, it could have burned it up. Now the question. When it overheated, how bad was it? Could you have blown a headgasket? A bad head gasket could be causing the problem you described.

Are you loosing coolant? Have you checked the oil to make sure there is no coolant making it into the engine?

Let me know. You may want to do a compression test to check for a bad headgasket.

Joe

My car overheating only when driving. I have replaced the reservoir, water pump, thermostat, radiator hoses, and it still overheating. I can have it setting in my driveway for hours running and it will be fine but if I start it and go about a mile from my home it will overheat to the point were it is in the red. Help please.

Hi,
Let's start at the beginning. Did this suddenly happen? Our did it slowly start getting warmer and warmer while driving and then finally started overheating?
Is your coolant in good condition and full?
Mixed properly? 50/50?
Is the pressure cap sealing well and holding pressure?
Let Me know what you find.
Jon

Engine Cooling problem
1999 Chevy Malibu 6 cyl Front Wheel Drive Automatic
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the problem is that my fans arent turning on to cool the rad fluid down so its constantl boiling over when driving through town, on the highway its fine. i just replaced the water pump and the temp sensor and the problem still occurs is there anything else that i can try

when the ac is turned on does the cooling fans come on then?

if so its a issue with the switch or the switch wiring harnss, if not the fans may be bad.

sometimes the fans come on with the ac the work in both low mode and high blower mode if i unplug the temp sender