Junk In My Coolant

[SlowWhite]

So I've been trying to figure out why my cars pushing coolant.

And yesterday I started the car with the radiator cap off to let the bubbles out.

and noticed after like 1 minute or so that I'd get "1" small bubble ever 3-4 seconds.

And each time it happened it would come up with a bunch of Junk/Crud.

Looked like the crap that sits in the bottom of your overflow tank but it was coming out of the motor?


What do I do to get ride of this stuff? and what is it? Also with the 1 bubble ever 3-4 seconds does that mean I have a blown headgasket?

[1ViciousGSX]

Could be left over machining solvents and lubricants coming up from inside of the block.

As far as the bubbles go, what temp was the engine at when it was bubbling?

[SlowWhite]

idle - engine temp was probably about 150 or so?

I let it cool down all the way to see if it would suck coolant back into the thermostat, then I started it up.

From Start to finish it was only running for 3 minutes at idle.

[JET]

Sounds like a blown head gasket. The crud could be oil, but we can check it out tonight when you get to my place.

[SlowWhite]

There's no oil in the coolant?

I'm thinking it's the crud from my overflow tank since I've been using it to fill up the coolant when ever it would get low (my radiator cap was bad) so I replaced it yesterday or the day before.

But I'm also wondering if that crud builds up in the motor or radiator like it does in the coolant bottle?

I'm thinking it's probably time to clean/Flush the system? (which sucks cause I just threw out all that stuff to do it last month even though all of the flush stuff was still new/unopened)

What's strange is in the past when I blew a headgasket (ie: pin hole sized) it would bubble up a white film and be almost a constant bubbling (really small bubbles but still constant/alot)

where as this there is 1 bubble every 3-4 seconds and when it's not bubbling it's looks completely normal?

Jet I have a new thermostat that I can swap in tonight when I come up there.

I'll just have to get some more water wetter or something from QPR.

I've been battling this heating issue since I first put my car together. It's almost acting as if one of the coolant passeges are clogged and it's only allowing a minor bit of coolant to get by (ie: like a Clogged Drain) and that's what the bubbles are from?

[A//// Guy]

You supposed to fill coolant in the overflow tank.. thats why it has a low and high on the bottle. Just make sure its clean, wash it out and also flush your coolant and see. Check for coolant if you do an oil change.

[SlowWhite]

I know the overflow tank has to be around 1/2 full - I'm not that blonde. :stick:


Like I said the coolant gets pushed into the overflow tank filling it up to just about the top of the overflow (not quite)


And that amount of Coolant is enough to leave the thermostat housing empty of coolant.

so everytime I go take off the radiator cap I just empty the overflow tank back into the thermostat housing, and when it's full again. I always around 1/2 full on the overflow tank just like when I started.

There is no oil in the coolant checked again on lunch break.

[Goat Blower]

Still sounds like a headgasket. There doesn't have to be oil in the coolant for that to be the problem. Do a compression test with the radiator cap off.

[SlowWhite]

what will that do? (never heard of doing it that way... just wondering what's the reasoning?)

[Enes]

if there is a leak it will show less of a compression..

what you can do is also do is preasurize the coolant system with a gauge on there and see if it leaks.. if the preasure drops over time you do have some kind of a leak somewhere
and if you don't see it anywhere on the ground, or in your car it most likely looks like its in your engine..

-E