1994 Plymouth Acclaim overheating 4 cyl Auto

On Mon, 14 Feb 2005, Helvis wrote:

> I have a 94 Acclaim that wouldn't hardly warm up. A friend said I
> needed a thermostat, so I replaced it. I am pretty sure that I put it
> in the correct way. I put it in the same way the other was in.
> Anyway, since then it has had a couple of intermittent periods of
> overheating. The following day we took it out and it got really hot so I
> pulled over and opened the hood. The engine was really hot but the radiator
> and upper hose felt cold.

Sounds as if you failed to bleed the air out of the cooling system after
replacing the thermostat. That's what the screw-in fitting atop the water
box (where the thermostat goes) is for.

> I opened the radiator cap and some coolant shot out.

NEVER do this; you can be very badly burned.

It's good to drill a 1/8" hole in the thermostat flange *just* outboard of
the valve poppet, and when you install the thermostat put this hole at the
12:00 (top) position; this helps move air forward and evacuate it. But for
now, you need to bleed the system. The screw plug is often frozen in
place, so a decent alternative procedure is to put the car with the nose
on as sharp an upward angle as possible, loosen the radiator cap and run
the engine at a fast idle until it reaches full operating temperature and
for about 10 minutes thereafter.

The other possibility is that your engine requires a head gasket. These
engines aren't as prone to head gasket failures as the early 2.0/2.4, but
they do tend to need a gasket if they begin heating up like this.

Daniel J. Stern wrote:
> ...a decent alternative procedure is to put the car with the nose
> on as sharp an upward angle as possible, loosen the radiator cap and run
> the engine at a fast idle until it reaches full operating temperature and
> for about 10 minutes thereafter.

Just curious: What angle would be too much in risking oil starvation
(answer may depend on oil level)?

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
adddress with the letter 'x')

Daniel J. Stern wrote:

> On Mon, 14 Feb 2005, Helvis wrote:
>
>
>>I have a 94 Acclaim that wouldn't hardly warm up. A friend said I
>>needed a thermostat, so I replaced it. I am pretty sure that I put it
>>in the correct way. I put it in the same way the other was in.
>>Anyway, since then it has had a couple of intermittent periods of
>>overheating. The following day we took it out and it got really hot so I
>>pulled over and opened the hood. The engine was really hot but the radiator
>>and upper hose felt cold.
>
>
> Sounds as if you failed to bleed the air out of the cooling system after
> replacing the thermostat. That's what the screw-in fitting atop the water
> box (where the thermostat goes) is for.
>
>
>>I opened the radiator cap and some coolant shot out.
>
>
> NEVER do this; you can be very badly burned.
>
> It's good to drill a 1/8" hole in the thermostat flange *just* outboard of
> the valve poppet, and when you install the thermostat put this hole at the
> 12:00 (top) position; this helps move air forward and evacuate it. But for
> now, you need to bleed the system. The screw plug is often frozen in
> place, so a decent alternative procedure is to put the car with the nose
> on as sharp an upward angle as possible, loosen the radiator cap and run
> the engine at a fast idle until it reaches full operating temperature and
> for about 10 minutes thereafter.
>
Isn't that whats a Jiggle valve is for?

Bob

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Bill Putney wrote:
> Daniel J. Stern wrote:
> > ...a decent alternative procedure is to put the car with the nose
> > on as sharp an upward angle as possible, loosen the radiator cap
and run
> > the engine at a fast idle until it reaches full operating
temperature and
> > for about 10 minutes thereafter.
>
> Just curious: What angle would be too much in risking oil starvation
> (answer may depend on oil level)?
>

Depends on the engine, I guess. All the cars I have have rear-sump oil
pans, so I'm guessing the answer in that case would be something over
45 degrees Now if you've got a F*rd with a front sump pan, that
might be a different story.

nate

On Tue, 15 Feb 2005, Bob Urz wrote:

> > It's good to drill a 1/8" hole in the thermostat flange *just*
> > outboard of the valve poppet, and when you install the thermostat put
> > this hole at the 12:00 (top) position; this helps move air forward and
> > evacuate it. But for now, you need to bleed the system. The screw plug
> > is often frozen in place, so a decent alternative procedure is to put
> > the car with the nose on as sharp an upward angle as possible, loosen
> > the radiator cap and run the engine at a fast idle until it reaches
> > full operating temperature and for about 10 minutes thereafter.

> Isn't that whats a Jiggle valve is for?

Certainly. Often they are not present or are not sufficiently large.

On Tue, 15 Feb 2005, Bill Putney wrote:

> > ...a decent alternative procedure is to put the car with the nose on
> > as sharp an upward angle as possible, loosen the radiator cap and run
> > the engine at a fast idle until it reaches full operating temperature
> > and for about 10 minutes thereafter.
>
> Just curious: What angle would be too much in risking oil starvation
> (answer may depend on oil level)?

Gracious. I'm not suggesting winching the nose of the car up in the air!
Just a floor jack plus a suburban angled driveway would be plenty. Or a
street parking space in San Francisco (Ha ha...no such thing). Any
angular answer I would give you would be purely academic, and I don't know
it.

"Daniel J. Stern" > wrote in message
.umich.edu...
> On Mon, 14 Feb 2005, Helvis wrote:
>
> > I have a 94 Acclaim that wouldn't hardly warm up. A friend said I
> > needed a thermostat, so I replaced it. I am pretty sure that I put it
> > in the correct way. I put it in the same way the other was in.
> > Anyway, since then it has had a couple of intermittent periods of
> > overheating. The following day we took it out and it got really hot so
I
> > pulled over and opened the hood. The engine was really hot but the
radiator
> > and upper hose felt cold.
>
> Sounds as if you failed to bleed the air out of the cooling system after
> replacing the thermostat. That's what the screw-in fitting atop the water
> box (where the thermostat goes) is for.
>
> > I opened the radiator cap and some coolant shot out.
>
> NEVER do this; you can be very badly burned.
>
> It's good to drill a 1/8" hole in the thermostat flange *just* outboard of
> the valve poppet, and when you install the thermostat put this hole at the
> 12:00 (top) position; this helps move air forward and evacuate it. But for
>
>The screw plug is often frozen in
> place, so a decent alternative procedure is to put the car with the nose
> on as sharp an upward angle as possible, loosen the radiator cap and run
> the engine at a fast idle until it reaches full operating temperature and
> for about 10 minutes thereafter.

Hmmm.... loosen the coolant temp sensor at the thermostat housing while
filling the radiator, the air will get pushed out to the thermostat level
and the thermostat will open without all that incline crap. This is not an
any shop manual therefore you would have to work on these cars to be able to
see what is going on!!


> The other possibility is that your engine requires a head gasket. These
> engines aren't as prone to head gasket failures as the early 2.0/2.4, but
> they do tend to need a gasket if they begin heating up like this.

I was waiting to reply because it seemed like it had resolved itself and I
wasn't going to have to do anything but.....

The car has been driven daily since my first post and didn't heat up again
until last night. It did almost the same thing as before. It finally got
to a point when it was really hot and the thermostat decided to open and the
engine temp dropped to normal in a matter of seconds. I already have a
spare thermostat and gasket so I am going to change it out and then I'll
bleed the system as Daniel suggested. Though I don't want to drill a hole
in the flange for fear of really messing something up ;o)

When I installed the first thermostat I did leave the cap off and let it
warm up like Lawrence had suggested. It did start to spill out so I thought
I was ok but maybe I didn't let it go long enough.

In the Hanes book it says to drain the entire system and reuse the coolant
if it is fairly new but doesn't mention anything about bleeding it. There
is a hex head plug at the top of the water box like Daniel said there would
be but the book didn't mention it at all.

A friend is bringing me some larger hex wrenches later today since I don't
have any big enough. Hopefully this will fix it for good.

Thanks for all of the suggestions guys. I'll be posting another question
about my truck so stay tuned!




"Daniel J. Stern" > wrote in message
.umich.edu...
> On Mon, 14 Feb 2005, Helvis wrote:
>
>> I have a 94 Acclaim that wouldn't hardly warm up. A friend said I
>> needed a thermostat, so I replaced it. I am pretty sure that I put it
>> in the correct way. I put it in the same way the other was in.
>> Anyway, since then it has had a couple of intermittent periods of
>> overheating. The following day we took it out and it got really hot so I
>> pulled over and opened the hood. The engine was really hot but the
>> radiator
>> and upper hose felt cold.
>
> Sounds as if you failed to bleed the air out of the cooling system after
> replacing the thermostat. That's what the screw-in fitting atop the water
> box (where the thermostat goes) is for.
>
>> I opened the radiator cap and some coolant shot out.
>
> NEVER do this; you can be very badly burned.
>
> It's good to drill a 1/8" hole in the thermostat flange *just* outboard of
> the valve poppet, and when you install the thermostat put this hole at the
> 12:00 (top) position; this helps move air forward and evacuate it. But for
> now, you need to bleed the system. The screw plug is often frozen in
> place, so a decent alternative procedure is to put the car with the nose
> on as sharp an upward angle as possible, loosen the radiator cap and run
> the engine at a fast idle until it reaches full operating temperature and
> for about 10 minutes thereafter.
>
> The other possibility is that your engine requires a head gasket. These
> engines aren't as prone to head gasket failures as the early 2.0/2.4, but
> they do tend to need a gasket if they begin heating up like this.

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005, Helvis wrote:

> In the Hanes book it says to drain the entire system and reuse the coolant
> if it is fairly new but doesn't mention anything about bleeding it. There
> is a hex head plug at the top of the water box like Daniel said there would
> be but the book didn't mention it at all.

This is just one more example of why you should not rely on Haynes' crappy
books.

Full instructions for using a Haynes manual are at:

http://u225.torque.net/haynes_instructions.html

You should really, REALLY get the factory manual if you plan on working on
your own car.

DS

"Helvis" > wrote in message
...
> I was waiting to reply because it seemed like it had resolved itself and I
> wasn't going to have to do anything but.....
>
> The car has been driven daily since my first post and didn't heat up again
> until last night. It did almost the same thing as before. It finally got
> to a point when it was really hot and the thermostat decided to open and
the
> engine temp dropped to normal in a matter of seconds. I already have a
> spare thermostat and gasket so I am going to change it out and then I'll
> bleed the system as Daniel suggested. Though I don't want to drill a hole
> in the flange for fear of really messing something up ;o)
>
> When I installed the first thermostat I did leave the cap off and let it
> warm up like Lawrence had suggested. It did start to spill out so I
thought
> I was ok but maybe I didn't let it go long enough.
>
> In the Hanes book it says to drain the entire system and reuse the coolant
> if it is fairly new but doesn't mention anything about bleeding it. There
> is a hex head plug at the top of the water box like Daniel said there
would
> be but the book didn't mention it at all.
>
> A friend is bringing me some larger hex wrenches later today since I don't
> have any big enough. Hopefully this will fix it for good.
>
> Thanks for all of the suggestions guys. I'll be posting another question
> about my truck so stay tuned!
>
>
>
>
> "Daniel J. Stern" > wrote in message
> .umich.edu...
> > On Mon, 14 Feb 2005, Helvis wrote:
> >
> >> I have a 94 Acclaim that wouldn't hardly warm up. A friend said I
> >> needed a thermostat, so I replaced it. I am pretty sure that I put it
> >> in the correct way. I put it in the same way the other was in.
> >> Anyway, since then it has had a couple of intermittent periods of
> >> overheating. The following day we took it out and it got really hot so
I
> >> pulled over and opened the hood. The engine was really hot but the
> >> radiator
> >> and upper hose felt cold.
> >
> > Sounds as if you failed to bleed the air out of the cooling system after
> > replacing the thermostat. That's what the screw-in fitting atop the
water
> > box (where the thermostat goes) is for.
> >
> >> I opened the radiator cap and some coolant shot out.
> >
> > NEVER do this; you can be very badly burned.
> >
> > It's good to drill a 1/8" hole in the thermostat flange *just* outboard
of
> > the valve poppet, and when you install the thermostat put this hole at
the
> > 12:00 (top) position; this helps move air forward and evacuate it. But
for
> > now, you need to bleed the system. The screw plug is often frozen in
> > place, so a decent alternative procedure is to put the car with the nose
> > on as sharp an upward angle as possible, loosen the radiator cap and run
> > the engine at a fast idle until it reaches full operating temperature
and
> > for about 10 minutes thereafter.
> >
> > The other possibility is that your engine requires a head gasket. These
> > engines aren't as prone to head gasket failures as the early 2.0/2.4,
but
> > they do tend to need a gasket if they begin heating up like this.
>
Loosen the coolant temp sensor at the thermostat housing as you are filling
the system up it will push almost all air out, Start the engine and let the
rest burp out, you dont need to point the car up a hill or anything.

Glenn Beasley
Chrysler Tech