02 Pontiac Grand Am GT cooling system help?

  • Thread starter Thread starter reggie
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reggie

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My car will start and idle fine, but within 10-15 mins of driving my temp.gauge will slowly start rising until it gets to the red light. So i decided to go buy a Hayne's manual for my car and do some troubleshooting. I have then had a buddy of mine who happens to be a mechanic replace my water pump, thermostat and put in a new fan relay switch (?) i think it was.. he said my fans weren't kicking on and after installing that part they did so.. anyways.. after putting those new parts in, the car still overheats, not to mention my heater does not blow any hot air out on full blast. I've asked questions on here in the past and have been told there is air trapped in my cooling system and to open the bleeder valve located at the front of the engine to let it all out until a solid stream of coolant comes out, which i have. Hot air starts blowing out of the heater and i get excited and take it for a ride down the street. the temperature gauge starts going back up and the heater starts blowing cold air again. My friend takes a look under the hood and says he thinks my radiator is clogged up and disconnects the radiator hose that is connected to the coolant tank, puts a water hose in the radiator hose and flushes it out. The car still overheats. He doesn't know what else to do but flush out the block (?) i have no idea what that is. If anyone else has any other suggestions BESIDES getting rid of the car please let me know. I don't see any leaks and im pretty confident my gaskets are not blown since there is no oil in my coolant so... please.. any suggestions would be very much appreciated. Sorry this is so long, just trying to give as much info as possible.

~Reg
 
Sorry guy but just because there is no oil in the coolant or coolant in the oil does not mean that a head gasket is not blown.take it to a good shop and have them do a compression test on it.Or any thing else they do to check for leaking head gaskets.Hope this helps.
GOOD LUCK
 
I'm not familiar with cars but the place where I work had some problems on heat exchangers of our air compressors. When we opened it, we found scale deposits on the water side of the exchanger. We have it cleaned and the compressor worked fine. Just an idea....
 
Don't get rid of the car...this isn't gonna be a big problem. I'm almost certain.

Try flushing the radiator and the block and refilling. Make sure you do it right so you get all the air out and you have the right levels. If the hoses are old, replace them. Old hoses can collapse and cause the coolant to stop flowing.

My car used to overheat and we replaced the thermostat; that fixed it. Make sure you didn't pinch the gasket when you were putting it back together
 
bleeding the cooling system can take a number of repetitions to get all the air out. make sure the car is on level ground. if you have the problem after four or five tries, you could have a warped head that is allowing hot combustion gasses through to the coolant system, or a number of other problems, have the car checked out at a competent shop.
 
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