[BigBlue89Bronco]

Hey Guys

(i searched)

As the weather is getting hotter, my bronco seems to be complaining more. Seems like shes always running hot. Recently i took er up a trail and after 15 minutes or so it started to overheat. ive had problems like this before going through mountain pases. i wasnt trying to blast my way up the the pass,(maybe doing 50?) and i never use A/C. seems a little unreasonable that it would overheat

my question: a)is something mechanically wrong or is this just normal.
b) what is the biggest bang for your buck thing to run cooler?


thanks!

 

[Havoc]

you could always have another set of coils added to the radiator .

does your radiator have two or three cores ? if it has two think about going to the three .

I also agree with the above poster , check all of your cooling system components !

 

[BigBlue89Bronco]

How old is the water pump? Coolant? Radiator? T-stat? Fan clutch?



Water pump impellers erode & slip on their shafts; coolant ages whether the truck is running or stored; radiators are like filters - they collect all the crud & plug from the bottom up; t-stats stick & become unresponsive; fan clutches wear & age.

i dont really know. Im going to assume stock BUT... the PO had an engine overhall on right before he sold it to me. the paper work says (R&R engine/Engine overhall for close to 4,000$)... that was about 6K miles ago.


all that other stuff sounds REALLY fun to chase around..:duh

 

[Havoc]

Its not to hard to flush the cooling system and put in new coolant ,, the radiator can be checked for flow while its in the truck , a couple of wrenches and an hour will change the thermostat .

the water pump if your unsure of its age I would change it out also .

anything is better than overheating your engine !

 

[BigBlue89Bronco]

Its not to hard to flush the cooling system and put in new coolant ,, the radiator can be checked for flow while its in the truck , a couple of wrenches and an hour will change the thermostat .

the water pump if your unsure of its age I would change it out also .

anything is better than overheating your engine !

-i know for sure it was flushed with the overhall (they charged for new coolant)


thanks for all the quick help guys! very appreciated!:beer

 

[seemoremud]

If it stays cool going down the highway, and heats up idling in traffic and going slow on the trail, check the fan clutch for sure. On the highway, your speed pushes air through, w/o speed, your left with however much air your fan is pulling. And with a bad clutch, it probably ain't much.

 

[droptop986]

Water Pump...

I just changed mine yesterday. Same symptoms. No leaks but when I took the belt off to check the water pump to see if it spun you could tell it wasn't spinning freely anyway, $15 for a reman at advanced 2 hours of work and temperatures are back to normal.

 

[doubled1178]

Right after I bough my Bronco I found that it would severely overheat when I was on a steep incline facing up. It didn't matter what I was doing (idle/or spinning tires/climibg obstacles). The longer that I was on the incline, the hotter it would get. I couldn't figure it out why it would do it only on an incline so I decided to replace the thermostat, upper and lower radiator hoses and back flush it.

Once I got the lower hose off I am pretty sure I found what the main culprit was. There was a spring on the inside of the hose that was there in order to 'maintain' the hose's shape. The spring had alowed a ton of sediment and buildup to form in the lower hose rather than dropping to the bottom of the radiator like it usually does.

I finsihed replacing the hoses (new lower hose did not have a spring in it), backflushed it and replaced the thermostat and it has been great ever since then.

 

[Havoc]

I have added another layer to several radiators ,,only on fords though which seem to have a problem with overheating !

The dodges and chevys I have owned never had a probelm in that area even though they have their own weaknesses .