Overheating gt4 1990

[dzk]

Car overheated yesterday about 10 metres before I parked it. Popped the hood open and the coolant was all over the battery tray and steam/smoke coming from the engine bay. Waited till it cooled down and filled with water after work. Drove home after work without too much waiting with heater on full.

Removed radiator today to check for blockages leaks etc. I have only run hose water through it until the water was clear. Didn't appear to be much blockage that I could see. A few bent fins in it but nothing major.

Put radiator back in and test drove around my streets and seemed to be fine. I did have the heater on though on low. I continued to sit in my car parked in my drive for about 20 minutes without the heater and the temperature began to steadily rise. When turning the heater on again it steadily drops the temperature to about halfway where I believe it should be. I haven't put any coolant in it as of yet but without would it contribute this much to the overheating problem?

What am I looking at to replace to fix this problem? Thermostat? waterpump?

The 25km drive from Porirua to Wellington was average traffic until I reached the stadium where there is alot of waiting. No hard driving either.

Car is running std boost at 11-12psi and wasn't thrashing it at the time. Please don't tell me its headgasket as I had this replaced in March before I bought the car.

Any ideas guys on fixes/costs etc? Thanks for your help in advance.

[strx7]

to flow test a radiator - put your hand over the bottom hose and fill the radiator up with water, remove have off bottom hose and the water should gush out and take perhas 2-3 seconds to empty. if it just steadily flows out and takes says over 5 seconds then its internally blocked.

general rule of thumb - GT4's dont like being over-heated

[sergei]

Most likely to be thermostat, or say radiator semiblocked.... or just simply an air lock. When you replace thermostat replace the radiator cap at the same time . To get rid of air lock 1) jack the front of the car as high as normal jack will allow (this will make radiator the highest point in the system) 2) open cap (on cold), start the engine with the heater on hot but heater fan off, run it till warms up and continously add water, it will spit some back but dont worry about it. The sing is when the radiator fan switches on atleast once. While you there check operation of thermostat (if you are not going to replace it) by comparing temperature of botha radiator hoses when car is fully warmed and radiator fan is going (one pipe should be warm and other real hot, but none of them should be cold).
While you have radiator cap off and car running check if you don't have bubbles (lots of small ones)... if you have - it is the sign of BHG.

[dzk]

Strx7. I tried blocking the radiator off at the time at the top and the water came out immediately. I can try what you suggest. Whats needed to clear the blockage if any? I did block all ends when the radiator was out and gave it a light shake. I would say it took about 3 seconds to empty.

Sergei. Will jack the car up tomorrow and do as you suggest. How much for a thermostat roughly? Is it an easy install or a hard to get to install?

Lastly on the bubbles=bhg. I haven't see any as of yet but will check for this. I know how much it costs for bhg too hoping it isn't. I did however hear a kind of boiling sound at the time. The radiator fan does work. What can I unplug/disable to have the radiator fan on all the time until I get these parts. So if it doesn't bubble but spits out a little bit I'm fine with the headgasket?

Thanks for your responses.

[bluemaumau]

my 4age thermostat was approx 30 buxs,. so pretty cheap. (genuine that is)

unplug the plug ontop of the thermostat to have fan runnning

[Boosted_162]

So your coolant is being forced out the overflow? Mines doing that, i have bubbles in my coolant and it seems i have a bhg.

How's it running before it gets too hot? Mine takes forever to warm up, which suggests thermostats been removed, but also sits at halfway temp which would be too hot for no thermostat.

[Akane]

Here's your membership card, welcome to the club.

[dzk]

Well I'm about to head down to Toyota for a thermostat replacement and radiator cap.

Boosted 162- It seems to run fine. Only seems to overheat when idling for too long. I haven't seen it overflow and it was the first time its happened since I have had the car. I will check for bubbles. I hope I don't have a bhg. As I mentioned before I have only had this done in march running std boost.

If it bhg I was going to have the engine out in the nearish future to change the gearbox as the 2nd, 3rd and 4th are slowly getting worse in the synchro department.

Akane - Do you mean dead 3s society or bhg society lol. I don't want to a member of either of those clubs.

Now I'm no mechanic but replacing of the thermostat, does that go into the 'too hard basket'?. Is it easy enough to get to? Thanks for your support and advice guys

[Leon]

Possibly silly question ... is your thermofan definitely working? That could explain the overheating while idling issue.

[2LTR Rona]

Possibly silly question ... is your thermofan definitely working? That could explain the overheating while idling issue.

will second that, and i speak from experience

[dzk]

Okay, where is the thermofan and thermostat so I can check this. The radiator definitely comes on. When I started the car today before I went down to toyota for the thermostat and radiator cap, I let it idle. Took off the radiator cap and there are small bubbles so may be it is bhg. I hadn't jacked it up like sergei said as I need to get to a dry garage as its raining here in wellington.

Thanks in advance. Im hoping its the 'silly question' fix rather spend a grand for headgasket to be done again!!

[Leon]

We're talking the fan on the radiator.

But... if you've got bubbles, you've most likely got BHG

[dzk]

No point doing the thermostat then. So if it bubbles its blown? How long have I got. Is there anything I can buy to put in to buy me some time? What kind of head gasket should I replace it with?

[Akane]

LOLOL!
Don't worry your membership card is good for both clubs.

[Leon]

So if it bubbles its blown?

Very likely.

However, get a mechanic to do a test to make sure this is the case.

Can't answer any of your other questions with any certainty as they are all "your milage may vary" type questions with no concrete answers.

[dzk]

Leon-Thanks. Will get a test done tomorrow. Well from every ones opinion and from what I have seen it looks that way. Only had it done in March this year when I bought the car. It has about 140ks on the clock. Will update this once I have found out. If I do have to replace headgasket, whats better than standard? I obviously don't want this to happen every 6-9 months.

Akane - What is it with 3sgte's? Al's one is the only 'magical one' that I have seen on here that runs high boost without forged internals all day everyday. My first celica gtr had a blown head gasket too 1987 then blew a big end bearing within 4 weeks of putting another 3sge engine that had an engine that was only 8000k's old, gearbox was bling silver new too. I can't wait to see Adydas's finished result. I have been following his project on here for awhile.

Thanks

[Akane]

dzk, Al doesn't have a magical 3S-GTE, he just happen to get lucky, he did have his fair share of problems too, but if he wanted anybody else to know about it he'll post about it

Adydas's car's pretty much new, he bought it, drove it to the dairy to buy some milk and then took the engine out, throw a lot of money and work on it, so you can't just say "His doesn't blow!" but with the right tuning, his one should not at all (dunno about the dodgey 3S-GE block tho although his one is as good as a 3S-GTE with all the new gadgets he has).

3S-GTE does have a crappy head (For your year at least), the Alloy gets really soft, I managed to cheat fate for a while with a set of ARP headbolts, I handed my car to the tuner and he blows the headgasket for me instead, mine's still drives but it had the same symptom as yours - Crusing down queen street thinking I'm the friggin' sh1ts, eye raping the girlies, then my temp gauge jump through the roof, I don't think I was that cool when I pulled over with the engine bay hood up.

[no_8wire]

eye raping the girlies

awesome

[dzk]

I really like this car but engine out twice within a year is expensive especially as I will paying mechanic to do it. Its like what do I do? Get another engine and spend the grands trying to bulletproof it and build it up from there or just skip it and straight to a st205 and spend grands on that?

Are the heads prone to what you describe for just the 1990 year? or all through the st185's series?

I wasn't even thinking I was cool. Just going to work in Wellington in 7.30am traffic. No eye raping at all.

[Akane]

No, the cool thinking and eye raping was true, it was from me. I love the eye rape.

There's not much you can do really, change the head gasket, plane the head if it's not straight, get some new headbolts and bolt it all back up again.

If you have done this already chances are the mechanic who did this for you didn't do it properly or your car's timing is out of whack.