I changed my water pump on my 98 ld9 about a month ago, since then I have had to add coolant twice due to my engine going almost to the red-line on the guage, and my low coolant light coming on. When I checked my over flow tank both times, it was bone dry, taking about 1/4 gallon to top off each time. It seems to run a bit on the hot side now. Before the pump replacement I was using straight water and the guage stayed right in the middle at 195, now it is always running about 205-210. I am running a bit more dexcool than what I should like a 65/45 mix. Could this be my problem? Or could I have rust hung up in the system? I did a flush when I changed everything. I am going to take a look inside the cylinder's tomorrow to see if there is coolant present so i will know if I need to replace the head gasket, but I really dont see this being my problem. I do have 150,000 miles on the engine though. Any help is appreciated. And by the wa, I dont have any leaks in the lines or anything, I have checked, and there is no pooling on the ground. It seems to be a slow leak, like I fill it up once every 10 days or so. But I dont know where the hell my coolant is going!


98z24, lowered 2", aem intake, cat-back striaght pipes!, cop ligths in the front and rear, 18" liquid metal's, primer black, tint, full audio and video.

I meant 65 coolant and 35 water, I am a retard when it comes to math. Haha


98z24, lowered 2", aem intake, cat-back striaght pipes!, cop ligths in the front and rear, 18" liquid metal's, primer black, tint, full audio and video.

These cars are notorious for being hard to purge the air from the cooling system. Many guys suggest jacking the passenger side and idling it with the cap off. I would also suggest changing the cap since that seemed to help me. The dealership cap was 18psi so it seems GM changed that at some point.

I also read somewhere about the hard heater return line on the front of the engine getting clogged and causing this problem. That guy said he blew air through it and tons of scale / sludge came out. After that he said the air purged without any problem. When I eventually do my hoses I plan on doing this.

Good luck, man!

2.2 97 Cavalier......the "Crapalier"

Ok, but why wold coolant be lossed? It wasnt back flowing through the cap... And that is how i bleed the system, car jacked up and heater and blast.


98z24, lowered 2", aem intake, cat-back striaght pipes!, cop ligths in the front and rear, 18" liquid metal's, primer black, tint, full audio and video.

I'm guessing that you're not losing coolant and you've still got air in the system from the water pump change. Have you been hearing the "glug, glug" in the dash that indicates a water pocket? Have you seen any white smoke from the exhast indicating a bad head gasket?

2.2 97 Cavalier......the "Crapalier"

No white smoke, but as a matter of fact, I do hear the "glug" in the dash, didnt know what it was! Thanks, and I also noticed that my vooling fan didnt kick on the last time the darn thing overheated. I am thinking about doing the over-ride to remedy this. But I guess I will keep on trying to get the darn air pocket out. So, where is the air escaping when I refill the system? Out the overflow cap since I still have the stock 15 psi one?


98z24, lowered 2", aem intake, cat-back striaght pipes!, cop ligths in the front and rear, 18" liquid metal's, primer black, tint, full audio and video.

might need to change the whole pipe in the front it goes to the waterpump .. thats what happened to me after a clean install of the waterpump ... :"S

I think the problem is that most of the air isn't escaping. If it's clogged, that pipe along the front of the engine doesn't allow the air to properly purge. "I think" the 18 psi cap helped me out, but I added coolant quite a few times before it stopped. You should try to blow some air through that pipe and see if a bunch of crap comes out. Let us know the outcome.

I don't know what the deal is with these cooling fans. Mine would never kick on either unless I ran the A/C.

2.2 97 Cavalier......the "Crapalier"

I will try that, I jsut dont have an air compressor, I will take it to work tomorrow and see if I can sneak my car in the garage during lunch and see what happens. I just "nut and bolted" everyhting to the proper torque to be on the safe side if there were leaks. SO we will see about the sludge build up...


98z24, lowered 2", aem intake, cat-back striaght pipes!, cop ligths in the front and rear, 18" liquid metal's, primer black, tint, full audio and video.

For the experince Ive had with cavaliers, Then do take some time for bleeding the air out of the system. When I did my coolant flush, Replaced the thermostat. I filled the coolant (dex-cool) I mixed it 70/30 mixed worked like a charm, I notice my temp gauge creeping to red line, I was little freaked thought awwww shoot, my cyl head & H/G gonna be wrecked. I noticed it was bouncing around, When I feathered the throttle, I made sure I popped off the Cap heater on, allowed it to idle for 20 mins, with open throttle. It bleeded the cooling system. everything was back to normal.

i would bet theres sludge from the GM dex-crap thats in it. i hate that @!#$. flush it and put some good old fashioned green in it, then bleed it. youll never have any sludge again.



Did I mention I drive a 2000 Lumina now?-----wigm-tuners.org member

Matt Littel wrote:i would bet theres sludge from the GM dex-crap thats in it. i hate that @!#$. flush it and put some good old fashioned green in it, then bleed it. youll never have any sludge again.

DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS GUY

mixing the "good old fshioned green" and dex will cause problems. prestone makes an orange coolant that mixes with any kind of coolant. use that.

That is what I am using, and as far as sludge, well, I didnt get any air in that hose, but I did get a good stream of water flowing through it, the water pressure was pretty high as well. And a little bit of sludge came out, but nothing too serious. I dont know, hopefully after a few fill up's it will finally quit. HOPEFULLY! Haha!


98 z24, few upgrades, nitrous on the way!

I just ran into the same issue as the OP, and what I did was jack the passenger side up as high as you can get it, remove coolant reservoir cap, start car and under hood manually rev the motor around 3-4k for a couple of minutes, and while the car is still reving open the coolant bleeder till you seem a steady stream of coolant come out the side, the close it. I repeated this procedure 3-4 times and it cleared all the air pockets for me. Ofcourse there may be a simpler or modified version to what I did that may work too, but this is what I recall what I did anyhow for what its worth



J

Too bad my engine doesnt have a coolant bleeder screw. Or as far as I know, the 2.4 doenst have a bleeder...


98 z24, few upgrades, nitrous on the way!

matthew christian wrote:Too bad my engine doesnt have a coolant bleeder screw. Or as far as I know, the 2.4 doenst have a bleeder...

Oops, my bad my car is a 2.2, sorry!


J

whiteboyz24 wrote:

Matt Littel wrote:i would bet theres sludge from the GM dex-crap thats in it. i hate that @!#$. flush it and put some good old fashioned green in it, then bleed it. youll never have any sludge again.

DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS GUY

mixing the "good old fshioned green" and dex will cause problems. prestone makes an orange coolant that mixes with any kind of coolant. use that.

I'm not retarded. i said flush it of the dexcool first, then fill it with green coolant. you can do that as long as its flushed first. read before you quote me, as i said nothing about mixing it.



Did I mention I drive a 2000 Lumina now?-----wigm-tuners.org member

have you had any luck with this problem yet?



Did I mention I drive a 2000 Lumina now?-----wigm-tuners.org member

yeah, actaully I have... I did a GOOD system bleed, and now it doesnt leak so bad, but I am still loosing coolant soemwhere, maybe the head gasket is to blame. I have went over all my lines and rechecked the torque, but everything is fine. So, I am going to order some steel seal and see where that gets me. But I guess the problem all along was the air in the lines. I dont know what the heck is up with everyone about the dex cool though, I had minimal sludge in my lines... When I put the steel seal in there, I am going to upgrade to an 18 psi cap, and hopefully it will be good for another 150,000 miles! But we will see, I will keep everyone updated. But what gets me is I did a compression check and all seemed well, like there is no faults with my head gasket....


98 z24, few upgrades, nitrous on the way!

ok, so, what I have figured out is this, I did a complete flush, and it is a bit better, but I noticed when cruising about 2 grand, I am running a bit on the hot side, like 205 or so. So when i gas it for 5-10 seconds, my temps go back down to 195. It is acting like there is somthing clogged up in the system, and when I gas it the water pump is pushing water harder through the system and it "free's" everything up for about 5 minutes then goes back to 205. What I am thinking about doing is getting an 18 psi tank cap and see if that helps with circultaing everything. Another odd problem I have been having is after I have been at idle for like 30 seconds, the car starts to stumble for 5-10 seconds, then clears up, as if I have a leaking head gasket that is letting coolant into the cylinders and the car stumbles until the coolant is burnt off. But what gets me is, if this were true, it would happen as soon as I start the engien, not after the engine has been running for about 30 seconds. Any advice is welcome, especially if you can tell me where I can get a higher psi overflow tank cap. I am going to try some head gasket repair as well, the liquid kind so it doesnt clog anythign else up, and see if I still get the stumble, but only after I get the tank cap.


98 z24, few upgrades, nitrous on the way!

not to thread jack but this is about the same thing I'm having, I'm going to replace the pump this evening after work, along with all hoses etc. My question is do I have to have a compressor to bleed the system properly or can I just Start it with the cap off and rev it up for a bit?

Also I've never changed a WP before do I need to remove the Alternator Bracket that is attached to the engine to get it off?


I don't know j-body's yet........but I will!