I have a 1999 sunfire 2.2L 4 door 3 speed, this started out with a coolant leak from the radiator (the fan broke and went through the radiator) so i went through the process of removing the radiator and replacing that and the fan, fired it up and it kept "overheating" temperature around 215 and trying to go higher so i would turn the car off, after diagnosing it i noticed the thermostat wasn't opening, boiled the thermostat and it didn't pop so the thermostat was bad, now i replaced everything tried to bleed as best i could, but now it is still overheating not as bad maybe around 205 or so however i have no heat? i am not sure what do to or what to check or how to diagnose these problems... any information will be helpful btw water pump replaced 2 years ago, and i have a 15 psi cap on it . i don't want to spend any useless money on randomly buying parts and replacing them so any processes are helpful. thank you for reading and suggestions.
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Air in the system, clogged heater core?
you allreadu diagnosed it though something does not make sense to me.
when hot do the radiator hoses get hot too, does the radiator itself get got , do the fans come on?
I belive you have 2 diferent issues, overheating is one , and interior heat is another,
you need to make sure coolant is sirculating between motor and radiator first, this should take care of the overheating, the heat core is another issue, may be cloged, may be an air buble, and just because the pump has been changed does not mean it is stil good I have seen new parts go bad too masny times, scratch everything and start over.
where does the temperature needle sit on the gauge? pics would be helpful. my guess is, while replacing the radiator you knocked some crust loose and now its clogged your heater core.
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hoses get hot but radiator not? I have seen coolant systems getting cloged after major repairs many times, you may have had some crap in the sistem that got disturbed, moved about and cloged some more, there is a fitting you can cut your heater hose and hook it up inline, it is a TEE, with a garden hose threads on it , it is used to rinse the system, the local parts store should carry it, though as cold as it is these days, make sure your block don't freeze when you are done.
Sounds to me you still got a whole lot of air in the cooling system
speaking of overheating our car did that ocasionaly I noticed that the fan was not spinning, so I tested it had continuity, pluged it in and it ran, still does it once in a while but we do not idle it much so it does not overheat, what controls the fan relay? I supose it is a temp sensor but where is it, the relay may be acting up too I suppose.
alright so i finally fixed the stupid thing today, how i went about it was rebleeding the WHOLE system i put the car on ramps and actually pulled the bolts outa the overflow tank and tipped it so that all the hoses were below the water level i then proceeded to pump all the radiator hoses i could reach until the coolant level ceased to go down anymore... this is how i will bleed my cooling system from now on because all of the other ways did nothing to work but this one worked within one shot. crossing my fingers hopefully it won't break down again.
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