Okay... so my car been getting hot / showing low coolant. Luckily I do short trips in the city and thats it... so I haven't let it get tooo hot. It's happened two or three times and each time i put about a quart of coolant in it and it ran fine for a day or two. Anyways... I think the tstat is stuck closed (It gets upto 195* when it runs fine, thats what the stock tstat is right?)

Today when I got to class it was starting to get hot. I parked it, shut it off, popped the hood, looked... Coolant was coming out the resivour cap. I let it cool some more then popped the cap and topped it off.

If its closed the water pump is pumping it up the radiator and trying to enter thru the tstat but it can't so it goes out the resivour cap right? Just wana make sure I'm right before I fix it.

 

If coolant is coming out the reservoir tank that's a sign of a bad head gasket.

 

Don't say that. lol, I really hope its the tstat.

 

Make sure both fans kick on when the temp gets hot. The stock PCM won't kick the fans on till it almost hits the red on the gauge. Could be a bad fan motor or t'stat.

 

I hope its the tstat... Cuz thats like $20/30mins.... Cars going in the shop Thurs to have Lower Ball Joints / AC Compressor looked at (See "Serpentine Belt Gets Eaten") so I might have my mechanic look at it. But I'd rather save the $$$ and do a easy 30 min job myself.

 

Could be some air in the system...mine bubbled out of the resivoir once, I was spooked...so I took it straight to my buddy who was a mechanic, we check it out, turns out it was some air in the system from my tstat install.

 

Might as well replace the t-stat first since its so cheap. Don't try to get it at auto zone because they will give you one for a sbc and not for an lt1.

 

do they really not carry ours?

 

I had some of the same symptoms and it was a clogged radiator.

 

Stock thermostat is 180°. You may just have a bad radiator cap. The stock thermostat is a long design (not like an SBC 'stat). If you buy, make sure you get the right one. AZ is famous for handing out the wrong one.

 

They do carry it though, right? Radiator cap is cheap as well so I will probably go ahead and replace it.

Is there any cons of running a 160* stat besides it not warming up as fast in the winter? Maybe a SLIGHT decrease in fuel economy?

 

I don't know if they do or don't, but I asked for an LT1 tstat and got a sbc one. Just make sure to compare them before you install, when I did mine I had thrown the old one out long before going to autozone so I did not know they were different.

 

If ya keep toping off with coolant then ya got more coolant than water and that will make it run hot. 50/50 mix is max.

 

nah I'm topping it off with 50/50.