crx08

First off this is a car I am fixing. I just need help pinpointing the problem that the car is having. the radiator blew so a new one got put into place. the owner refilled it with the green coolant from the reservoir first instead of from the engine. so there is possible air bubbles trapped inside the cooling system. the car's idle would dip down to 500 or a little bit below that and come back up to 1000. it does this while in Drive at a stop. any ideas on what else could cause the problem? the car has 292K miles.

I google searched and ran across this link here:
http://www.lexls.com/tutorials/cooling/coolant.html

that link has been very helpful.

tomorrow i'll be taking the green coolant out and filling it with the orange stuff and changing the thermostat also. is there a gasket in between the housing where the thermostat goes? on this car it has what looks to be a paper gasket. but the parts stores do not show of a gasket there. only the rubber o-ring that goes around the thermostat itself.

any help is greatly appreciated!

PureDrifter

iTrader: (10)

no gasket just an o-ring iirc. could be a host of things but i'd start by changing the engine coolant temperature sensor and ohming out the TPS+AFM

crx08

thanks for replying. I changed the thermostat out today and drain as much as the old stuff out. I changed the thermostat anyways because I was going to take the gasket off. unplugged the hose that is in between the reservoir and the radiator itself. and poured distilled water down the thermostat spout and more crusty fluid came out. so I kept doing this until I saw the water I was putting in. refilled with the orange coolant that mix (concentrate/distilled water) and filled it while squeezing the radiator hose until there were no bubbles coming out. took it out for a drive. it seems to drive better than before I did this.