i have blown the head gasket in my felicia twice....... first time was a faulty temp guage second time coolant bottle cover not being on (never lend your car to anybody)

right now car was repaired but still getting over heating problems here is a list of my complaints

1. fan coming on late at about or little under 100 degrees celcius

2. cover of bottle leaking... when the car is at operating temp 90 degree celcius you can hear air or steam escaping the bottle when hood is up

3. when i run the car hard.... i.e. hard accelerating and top out... temp sky rockets.... but never touches red .... i also lose coolant when i do this

i run with the a/c on so the fan stays on all the time in traffic the temp goes down but on the highway it goes up......

anyone have suggestions that can help? i'm thinking about installing two new fans on the front of the rad which can be operated by switch. i also live in a temperate country so the ambient temp is about 30 degrees

i have blown the head gasket in my felicia twice....... first time was a faulty temp guage second time coolant bottle cover not being on (never lend your car to anybody)

right now car was repaired but still getting over heating problems here is a list of my complaints

1. fan coming on late at about or little under 100 degrees celcius

2. cover of bottle leaking... when the car is at operating temp 90 degree celcius you can hear air or steam escaping the bottle when hood is up

3. when i run the car hard.... i.e. hard accelerating and top out... temp sky rockets.... but never touches red .... i also lose coolant when i do this

i run with the a/c on so the fan stays on all the time in traffic the temp goes down but on the highway it goes up......

anyone have suggestions that can help? i'm thinking about installing two new fans on the front of the rad which can be operated by switch. i also live in a temperate country so the ambient temp is about 30 degrees

same as my country (Dominican republic)

make sure you have 2 fan speeds and off.

replace reservoir cap, its cheap...

you have an engine that heats up really fast, too lean fuel mix is one thing, but i think you have a very lean mix combined with a too advance spark timing

please check to make sure you don't blow another one.. best of luck mate, and please report any finding and conclusions to the problem

Edited 28 December, 200817 yr by Cepheuz

My guess is that the radiator is partialy blocked, but it might be an idea to give the whole cooling system a good flush out and replace the thermostat. It is also possible that the water pump is on its last legs

i think replacing the leaking cap may solve a lot of your problems, the cooling circuit is supposed to be pressurised and there some odd side effects when pressure is allowed to escape

i think replacing the leaking cap may solve a lot of your problems, the cooling circuit is supposed to be pressurised and there some odd side effects when pressure is allowed to escape

As above this will cure 90% of your faults.

Do check your fan is operating.

Do check timing.

Do check mixture (on a carb, ignore if your car has injection).

If the problem persists (chances are I do think it will be the cap) then there is a possibility of blown headgasket a compression tester would show this. Or a faulty WATER (not oil) pump. It could even be a sludged up rad but this would not tend to give the fault you describe, if anything the problem would go away at speed even with the extra load placed upon it by the engine working harder.

Edited to add:

Having re-read your post I'm almost certain the problem is nothing more than a pressure leak (which you have found) and worse case maybe fan switch too.

deleted

Edited 28 December, 200817 yr by Cepheuz

he said that he blew the head gasket twice, the second time by a mistake of a friend whom left the reservoir cap off.

it is the fact that it happen twice for reasons that made the driver unaware of the sensible status of the engine that i believe is not something relating to the cooling system of the car.

when a car over heats i never look at cooling system as the problem, but as something that was not adequate to deal with the excess heat

Edited 28 December, 200817 yr by Cepheuz

also i believe that if the problem is on the water pump he would not see temp skyrocket right away (i takes water circulation to move hot water from the cylinders to the temp sender but with a bad (or clogged) oil pump it would do exactly that since giving car more load actualy make the problem worst and exponentially increase the effects

also he said that he blew the head gasket twice, the second time by a mistake of a friend whom left the reservoir cap off.

it is the fact that it happen twice for reasons that made the driver unaware of the sensible status of the engine that i believe is not something relating to the cooling system of the car.

when a car over heats i never look at cooling system as the problem, but as something that was not adequate to deal with the excess heat

he need to loosen the head gasket and torque it correctly, change the oil with a flush(incorrect oil grade or amount can also cause a car to overheat) and set timing with a gun, if he does this and only this i bet the car will not overheat

Look I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but I can't tell if your someone trying to have a laugh or you genuinely believe some of the things you come out with.

First off I speak as someone who restores classic and sports cars, in comparison to the engines I spend my life rebuilding the little felicia engine represents an extremely simple basic and when properly cared for very reliable engine.

An oil pump will not cause an engine to overheat. When an oil pump fails it simply fails to pump sufficient oil round the engine, this will vary from losing efficiency right up to total failure, don't get me wrong the increased friction this causes will present an increased temperature however the fact the engine will start to knock or seize will be far more noticable.

This problem is NOT oil pump. Never in a million years.

When water pumps go depending on the fault they can cease to pump completely or quite often they can pump ok at low revs but then fail to pump sufficiently at high revs due to cavitation. However it is a fairly rare fault but it must be remembered felicias are getting to the age you can expect to replace one.

Please please please do not loosen the head and retorque it. You will suffer head gasket failure shortly afterwards.

If you remove the rad cap completely you remove the upper 25% of cooling ability of the cooling system. It will cool perfectly fine on low load (cruise) however will overheat rapidly when sat in traffic or if the engine is being used in a fashion to increase engine heat rapidly. Which brings me on to my next comment.

You are partly correct that the fundamental problem may not be just the cooling system, hence my comment on timing, if the timing is incorrect it will cause lack of power and overheating (the lack of power exacerbates the problem causing you to drive it harder).

Oil pumps don't block. Oil pick ups can. Oil grade won't cause overheating.

Quite simply just be careful with the advice you hand out. Over a couple of posts now you have advised to run an engine with no water in it and to loosen a head and then retorque it, neither is advisable or in any way beneficial, bad advice could be taken by someone as gospel and end up costing them a lot of money to put right, It's great that your throwing ideas out there and trying to help but it's also best you stop at the point your confident your advice is good.

my advice is not of an engineer or a person who rebuilt cars, i do however present my ideas with confidences as a point of view, all we can do to help our fellows here is advices and comment,

no post in this site on a specific problem should be taken as a gospel s as wildoliver said cus where are not there and whe dont have all the pertinent data

so please friends and members regard mine and all post as point of view that you can use as tools to point you in a direction or other,

but good thing is, even though our points of view are different and our ideas are not the same (and also cultures) we must look at the similarities and things when do agree on, so on that not

disregard everything i said and check timing and replace cap first, the move to other areas (since a couple of people have agreed on theses points)

i'm pretty please with myself that a person like me can have a couple of point a experienced mechanic such as yourself agree with, and that triniskofan hopefully is going to enjoy the simple motor felicia as much as i do

and to avoid misleading someone i will hence forth limit my opinion post etc... surely dont want to get sued, i'm flat broke (and i dont want to have to sale my feli :()

and i apologies for any and all incorrect or misleadings information and i thanks very much triniskofan for setting me right before my over eager self could cause anyone in this post damage

Edited 28 December, 200817 yr by Cepheuz

thank you all for your comments and advice... i love my little felly and would do anything to keep her running...

shortly after repairing the head gasket the second time i did another oil change and full tune up with an oil flush....... radiator was flushed and the thermostat in the housing was changed not the one on the radiator i was under the impression that one was dealing with the air con......

the fan works both speeds and the cool down its just cutting on at the wrong temp

i think i will do the water pump change because the car is getting up there in age as well as kilometers(and also to my knowledge it was never done) as well as the coolant bottle and cover

as much as i'm doing all that i might as well change hoses

i have blown the head gasket in my felicia twice....... first time was a faulty temp guage second time coolant bottle cover not being on (never lend your car to anybody)

right now car was repaired but still getting over heating problems here is a list of my complaints

1. fan coming on late at about or little under 100 degrees celcius

2. cover of bottle leaking... when the car is at operating temp 90 degree celcius you can hear air or steam escaping the bottle when hood is up

3. when i run the car hard.... i.e. hard accelerating and top out... temp sky rockets.... but never touches red .... i also lose coolant when i do this

i run with the a/c on so the fan stays on all the time in traffic the temp goes down but on the highway it goes up......

anyone have suggestions that can help? i'm thinking about installing two new fans on the front of the rad which can be operated by switch. i also live in a temperate country so the ambient temp is about 30 degrees

Does your Felicia have the all alloy 1.3 pushrod engine? Does it have the plastic thermostat housing that commonly fails on later Felicias, or is it the better [alloy] earlier type?

When the head was off was the face checked for straightness? Was it corroded? The alloy heads on the 1.3 engines are prone to corrosion if used without sufficient antifreeze. Were the heights of the liners checked? It's not unknown for them to drop a little, making the head gasket much more prone to failure.

Sorry for all the questions, if you can answer them though we will be much more likely to be able to diagnose your car's problem.

My personal opinion, from what I've aready read, is that your radiator is blocked. Somtimes they get "scaled up" internally, [excactly like a kettle does] which reduces it's cooling efficiency a lot. No amount of flushing with water will clear it.

any updates on you felli triniskofan ?

yes i have had a major update........ i have the fan running constant by putting on the a/c but i have disconnected the compressor and the car runs extremely cool. not losing any coolant and both fan speeds works......

only when i top out and hold the speed the temp goes up but when i let off on the accelerator it cools down almost right away......

but i'm still a bit worried, with the fan on all the time the temp should go almost all the way down when i'm sitting in traffic, as it is it drops just below 90degrees

thanks all for the help

yes i have had a major update........ i have the fan running constant by putting on the a/c but i have disconnected the compressor and the car runs extremely cool. not losing any coolant and both fan speeds works......

only when i top out and hold the speed the temp goes up but when i let off on the accelerator it cools down almost right away......

but i'm still a bit worried, with the fan on all the time the temp should go almost all the way down when i'm sitting in traffic, as it is it drops just below 90degrees

revised;

the temperature should hove in 90 degrees (middle mark) no matter what the load or driving situation so if tis just under 90 and just over 90, you have no problem, on big loads ad high temperatures (ambient) it can go a little higher but that's o.k.

i live in the same climate as you 80 degrees f, and i can accelerate to max and keep it there and my temperature needle doesn't move, it moves only with heavy loads and not by much when sitting in traffic the temp goes higher than cruising, not lower (cu's there is no air flow, and idle tends to be a leaner mix witch heat up the engine a little)

Edited 7 January, 200917 yr by Cepheuz