DSM overheating problems

[DSMDragn]

Vehicle specs : 1992 eagle talon 2.0 L k&N air filter & aftermarket exhaust no big changes. manual transmission

Repairs : head has been resurfaced , valve job , thermostat , new water pump , and all relevent seals

The above repairs have been done to the vehicle before current situation arised

Situtation: After getting the car back from the mechanic the temperature gauge was reading dead center , when i pulled the car into the drive way i noticed it was alil hot i waited for the car to cool down and noticed that most of the antifreeze was gone from the car , so i filled the coolant . now i drive roughly 80 miles a day 40 miles to work and 40 miles home during the first week i noticed that the car was running alil hot and that i had to add water after every trip to work car wasn't having any power loss or performance problems that i could tell i haven't gotten on the throttle due to just having it fixed after a week and a half of this behavor i was making a trip to a friends house roughly 50 miles away during the return trip home the car started over heating rapidly i pulled over not wanting to destroy my motor waited roughly 1and half hours to let the car cool down i then added m ore coolant to the car and started it up again the car started and i was able to drive it but it didn't have the take off power that it had before i drove a few more miles and it started to over heat again i pulled over and me and a friend pushed the car down to a parking lot after getting to the parking lot and going into a gas station for something to drink i walk back to the car and started it . It was making a loud knocking noise and would idle really ruff . i turn the car off and had it towed any ideas as to what might have caused this kind of problem i am at a loss
i

[niterydr]

Busted hose? Blown head gasket?
If its knocking now, I bet the headgasket blew, mixed oil and coolant, and the 'knocking' is a rod.

[DSMDragn]

i haven't seen and busted hoses doesn't look like a blown head gasket i have no water in the tailpipe as i did originally when the head gasket was replaced as for the mixed oil and coolant i don't see it when i check the oil and i dont' see it in the radiator as for the knocking rod is that an easy fix or something i need a trained mechanic to look at am i looking at a big money pit

[DSMDragn]

do you think the high running temps had anything to do with the malufunction is there a way to get the temps down i am comparing temp readings to a 93 mitsu eclipse i owned previously (until it got up close and personal with an 18 wheeler )

[niterydr]

Well if its not leaking, its going into the motor, it just doesn't 'dissapear'. The factory gauge is a good guess, and operates in a 'range' of temperatures. How 'hot' was it getting on the gauge?' If its past the right hash mark, its overheating. Hell if the gauge moves, its probably overheating. I bet the headgasket install got botched.
Any steam or anything coming out of the engine bay (indicates broke/slit/loose hose)?

[DSMDragn]

it was dead center on the guage or the needle was straight up in the center the mitsu i owned read about half between dead center and the low side hash thats how i'm getting the its running to hot judgement as for steam it was only coming out of the overflow plastic jug :P

[Wizard]

I would agree that the head was probably shaved wayy to much, didn't seal well with new gasket....caused a "blown" headgasket problem. Which is when the compressed air charge is forced into the cooling passages and adds extra heat and pressure to the cooling system. This also causes a slow overflowing issue. This keeps going until the level of coolant is obviously to low to cool properly and actually even too low for the water pump to be able to even move it around the engine. And your temp gauge is reading the temp of the air, not the coolant temp. There was no coolant to read.

Sounds like you overheated it a bit more than what you are telling us. Your head is now junk....period. They probably shaved it down to min. before and now it's warped again. It only takes once. On top of that, aluminum pistons in an iron block that overheats has a tendency to produce piston slap and scoring of the cylinder walls. Meaning: Pull your head and check out all the lovely scratches down the cylinders.

To fix your problem properly, you're going to need:

Gaskets for the whole motor
Not warped DOHC head casting (don't forget Hyundai's)
Main and rod bearings
Piston rings
Maybe pistons..........in other words she needs a rebuild now. Knocking is from piston slap, spun rod bearings, etc. Once you hear it once.....it's pretty much too late.

Wiz

[rk4g63]

Cheaper possbilities you may want to look into :
1) Thermostat stuck
2) Radiator hose
3) Water pump - I know you said its new but could be just worth the time to check it out
4) Blown HG is a definite possibility dude

Based off what you mention - blown HG seems a good bet.

Just my 2 cents worth - check out the cheaper options first.

[DSMDragn]

so what was that about hyundia's

[DSMDragn]

shaved way to much i know they shaved it and the mechanic said it was real close to a mark after which it couldn't be shaved

[Outlaw1]

If the engine was knocking it's probably too late. You could have used a pressure tester to find out where the coolant is leaking.