ok this is really annoying. can anyone help me out. about a week ago i was on my way back from a dr. appointment when at a stop light i noticed my car start to heat up a lot. it got almost to the red. i had just installed a manual fan switch and a new 170* tstat (they didn't have a 160*) a week before. well i didn't think the mods i did had any affect, but i was still a little worried. i try turning on the ac, but that had no affect. then i tried puting into park and brought the engine rpms up cause i thought that maybe my water pump is going out, and that brought the temp down to about 1/2 way. while i was on the freeway everything was fine, the temp stayed right at 1/4 up the gauge. the next time i was a stop light i tried turning on the heat, and that made the temp go up a lot slower. well today i desided to go over to big-o tires and see what they say. they did their thing and came back to me saying that my radiator is leaking at the header (the plastic sides of the radiator), that their looks to be maybe oil in the coolant (when i pulled out the tstat the coolant looked really black, but my car isn't blowing smoke), and that my fans weren't working, even with the ac on. when i got back out on the road, it started to heat up like it did before, so i put it into park again, but that didn't help. then i tired turning on the heater, but all it did was blow cold air till i started driving again. then the air heated up and the temp droped to normal. when i got home i clipped the manual fan switch off cause i must have wired it wrong, and that fixed the problem with the fans. i took it for another drive and it ran nice and cool, till i got about 1/4 mile from home and it started heating up. i turned on the ac, and that brought the temp down. then i turned on the heat, and it did the same thing as when i left big-o. as i pulled into my drive way, the temp was fine so i idled it for about a minute, when i started to heat up. as it heated up i could hear the high speed fan kick in and that droped the temp, but when i shut off the temp went up again and didn't come down. i turned on the ac, and that dropped it for a few seconds, but it heated up agian. same with the heater, but this time i blow hot air right away. i checked under the car and not a drop of coolant was on the gound. i even looked at the weep hole, it and everything around it was bone dry. i checked the collant in the radiator to see if i can see oil and i don't think i do, but it is a little low (also on the way to big-o the low coolant light turned on). i don't think i have a blowen head gasket cause no smoke is coming out of my exhaust. i also tried to listen to the water pump, but i couldn't hear anything, neither could the guys at the shop. i hear a littl bit of a rattle, but i think that is from the altinator when i broke off 2 of the fan blades on it. i an really stressed about this. my parents are splitting and i don't have a job, so money is tight. can some one please help me, i am loosing my mind . some one also said it could be the pilot shaft for the wp could be stripped. does anyone think that could be it, and if so, how would i fix that? would i need a new wp for that. thanx for any help.

 

ok first things first. how long did you drive with out the fans working? and with the getting that high the heads could have warped and caused the head gasket to blow between a water jacket and a oil jacket and not through to the cylender. fill up the radiator and run it with the cap off and till it warms up and starts to circulate then you will see if there is oil in your water. you said the coolent was black when u put in the theromostat. you should have changed it then coolent should never get any color than green (anifreeze) or orange (dexcool). so see if there is water in the oil and and post on here if there is.

btw another way to check is pull your dipstick and if the oil on it looks like a milkshake or muddy water then you have a blown headgasket.

on older non cat equiped cars you could hold a dollar bill at either of the tail pipes assuming it was a true dual exhaust and if the head gasket was blown then it would suck the bill in.

if the pilot shaft for the wp was stripped then u would have no flow of coolen whatso ever

 

How do you get the dollar back?

 

i looked at the dipstick earlier, and it looked normal. i also looked inside the radiator, nothing. when the guys at big-o ran it they bled the system.

 

also, about it getting too hot, when i drove it it never got all the way to the red, just a hair past 3/4.

 

When I blew my headgasket we opened up the radiator cap and started it. The water shot out like crazy and bubled alot.

 

dont hod me to this and then tell me that i owe u money u lost in ur tailpipe but when u fix the headgasket and start it back up it will blow it back out. i have never tryed it its just something my grandfather told me when i was younger. its just another old hotrodders trick that he taught me.

back to the original prob. take the thermostat back out and leave it out and drive it for a hour or so and see if that fixes the prob ive see more than a few bad thermostats that were brand new out of the box over the last 5 years.

 

It is very hard to read your huge rambling paragraph, but it sounds like you don't have a problem if the fans now cool the engine down when they come on. An engine with electric fans is always going to heat up when the fans are not on and the car is not moving. You should also be sure you installed the correct, long thermostat that the LT1 requires. I have not really heard of a 170° being readily available for the LT1.

 

This is what I was thinking. Along with the "black" coolant could be a mixture of green and orange coolant. I also questioned whether the system had been bled after the t-stat change.