vondervanfan
06-20-2020, 06:00 PM
Hey wonderful van pros -
I've been troubleshooting cooling system issues in my van for about a year now, since she overheated in the West TX heat last year on her way to Santa Fe. The short of it is: got a new thermostat done in nowhere, TX, but she kept overheating 10 miles outside of nowhere-town. Air bubbles kept getting into the system, and once they were cleared, she would run well for 300-400 miles at a time and then get hot. We stopped to cool her down and drove at night to get to NM, clearing the system with the funnel method every time and finding more bubbles to purge. During this time, she did not get into the red and I was very conscious of her well being. Turns out the guys at the first repair shop had not tested her radiator cap and also did not thoroughly hook up the lower radiator arm to the thermo housing after the work... :swear:
My mechanic in Santa Fe looked at her, confirmed that there was no combustibles sneaking into her coolant, tightened the lower radiator hose which the guys in nowhere, TX had failed to reattach fully, changed her radiator cap and we were good to go. She pressure tested properly and I then drove her over mountains and in the city for a few weeks with no issues.
Well.... 300 miles outside of Austin TX on the road home, she starts overheating VERY suddenly again - at night. Torn the upper radiator arm - ugh - probably because of the time with the bum radiator cap and just general age/weakness. Got an ill-fitting replacement on her and limped back into town bit by bit.
I got the correct hoses once back home and with my own garage and changed her coolant hoses properly, which I realize I should have done before going on the road.... I'm so sorry, Van Lovers, I also learned my lesson about traveling with my own tools....
January/February she was doing great on highway and in the city - then all of the sudden she got to 3/4 hot on the temp gage after a short (20 minute) trip on the highway at 60-70 mph, at night. Sometimes I'd turn her on and she'd cruise in the city, then later she'd creep up and get too hot. Decided to replace the tstat since I don't really trust that mechanic from nowhere, TX to have done it properly/wonder if I hadn't broken the little thing at some point during this saga... OEM spec - I followed llamavan's precise instructions (https://www.toyotavantech.com/forum/content.php?199-Replacing-your-van-s-thermostat) exactly :thmbup:
So my question - this seems like a series of coolant issues, with perhaps an underlying cause that I have not yet located, yes? I'm wondering if she's not got some corroded parts/a pretty substantial blockage somewhere. I'm running distilled water in her now, and it's getting up to 110+ degrees in TX. She'll do great on the highway, but then if I turn the A/C on for long or get into stop-start traffic, she'll start getting too hot, and we pull off and think about our lives for a while. Am I too sensitive because of our past trauma? Could it be that I just should run her with the heat blasting and be gentle in this TX summer...? She doesn't like hills very much, but she can make short trips in the city without issue. The other clue is that once she starts getting hot (god forbid, we turn on the A/C or have a couple steep hills) she does not show that she can cool herself down any longer. She'll maintain at 3/4 of the temp gage for a little while, but then just keep creeping until I turn her off and cool her down...
She's gotten so hot that our overflow tank boils over (proof that the pressure in the system holds, I guess... - I also have pressure tested her since the work I've done). The water that comes out is really rusty-colored, even though I garden hose-flushed her a few times and water was running clear.
Thoughts? Recommendations? Reproachful disapprobations..?
I am reading carefully timsrv's how-to (https://www.toyotavantech.com/forum/showthread.php?1242-Article-Cleaning-the-Throttle-Body&highlight=throttle+body) on adding more sensitive temp gages for coolant temperature, as well as hoping to mod her with an additional heater core or extra help in cooling the system. I don't know if she might be just fine for the moment, and TX heat is just not her favorite - that would be fair - but before the West TX to NM trip, she did not overheat in the 6 months that I had had her. However, I also did not do a ton of summer driving... so it's hard to say.
I've been troubleshooting cooling system issues in my van for about a year now, since she overheated in the West TX heat last year on her way to Santa Fe. The short of it is: got a new thermostat done in nowhere, TX, but she kept overheating 10 miles outside of nowhere-town. Air bubbles kept getting into the system, and once they were cleared, she would run well for 300-400 miles at a time and then get hot. We stopped to cool her down and drove at night to get to NM, clearing the system with the funnel method every time and finding more bubbles to purge. During this time, she did not get into the red and I was very conscious of her well being. Turns out the guys at the first repair shop had not tested her radiator cap and also did not thoroughly hook up the lower radiator arm to the thermo housing after the work... :swear:
My mechanic in Santa Fe looked at her, confirmed that there was no combustibles sneaking into her coolant, tightened the lower radiator hose which the guys in nowhere, TX had failed to reattach fully, changed her radiator cap and we were good to go. She pressure tested properly and I then drove her over mountains and in the city for a few weeks with no issues.
Well.... 300 miles outside of Austin TX on the road home, she starts overheating VERY suddenly again - at night. Torn the upper radiator arm - ugh - probably because of the time with the bum radiator cap and just general age/weakness. Got an ill-fitting replacement on her and limped back into town bit by bit.
I got the correct hoses once back home and with my own garage and changed her coolant hoses properly, which I realize I should have done before going on the road.... I'm so sorry, Van Lovers, I also learned my lesson about traveling with my own tools....
January/February she was doing great on highway and in the city - then all of the sudden she got to 3/4 hot on the temp gage after a short (20 minute) trip on the highway at 60-70 mph, at night. Sometimes I'd turn her on and she'd cruise in the city, then later she'd creep up and get too hot. Decided to replace the tstat since I don't really trust that mechanic from nowhere, TX to have done it properly/wonder if I hadn't broken the little thing at some point during this saga... OEM spec - I followed llamavan's precise instructions (https://www.toyotavantech.com/forum/content.php?199-Replacing-your-van-s-thermostat) exactly :thmbup:
So my question - this seems like a series of coolant issues, with perhaps an underlying cause that I have not yet located, yes? I'm wondering if she's not got some corroded parts/a pretty substantial blockage somewhere. I'm running distilled water in her now, and it's getting up to 110+ degrees in TX. She'll do great on the highway, but then if I turn the A/C on for long or get into stop-start traffic, she'll start getting too hot, and we pull off and think about our lives for a while. Am I too sensitive because of our past trauma? Could it be that I just should run her with the heat blasting and be gentle in this TX summer...? She doesn't like hills very much, but she can make short trips in the city without issue. The other clue is that once she starts getting hot (god forbid, we turn on the A/C or have a couple steep hills) she does not show that she can cool herself down any longer. She'll maintain at 3/4 of the temp gage for a little while, but then just keep creeping until I turn her off and cool her down...
She's gotten so hot that our overflow tank boils over (proof that the pressure in the system holds, I guess... - I also have pressure tested her since the work I've done). The water that comes out is really rusty-colored, even though I garden hose-flushed her a few times and water was running clear.
Thoughts? Recommendations? Reproachful disapprobations..?
I am reading carefully timsrv's how-to (https://www.toyotavantech.com/forum/showthread.php?1242-Article-Cleaning-the-Throttle-Body&highlight=throttle+body) on adding more sensitive temp gages for coolant temperature, as well as hoping to mod her with an additional heater core or extra help in cooling the system. I don't know if she might be just fine for the moment, and TX heat is just not her favorite - that would be fair - but before the West TX to NM trip, she did not overheat in the 6 months that I had had her. However, I also did not do a ton of summer driving... so it's hard to say.