jmcmiller

Aloha all,

I am new to this site and was just wondering if I could get some help with this car my husband purchased.

The car just over heats, I checked all the liquids and everything seems to be fine. The coolant if full but the car still over heats. Could someone please help me.

vangb2

iTrader: (2)

Can you feel that the car hotter than usual? Do you see any color out of your muffler/tail pipe? How long before it overheat when driving?

It's hard to help without more information.

Spitfire86

You need to add more symptoms. Does it instantly overheat? take 20mins while driving? Steam with coolant boiling?

Is your oil murky?

jmcmiller

Well I have driven the car for about 15 minutes then it starts to over heat...no liquids or color coming from the muffler. I put coolant in and it stayed steady for a good 20 minutes before hitting straight to the H and now the engine is smoking....we put new oil in and there is no bubbles or murkyness going on there....the car is unusally hot and it stays hot for a long time. I got to work this morning at 8 and went to check the coolant level in the car at 12 noon and the vehicle was still hot.

1JZPWRD

iTrader: (59)

Maybe air in the cooling system? Has it ever been flushed properly and refilled to the max level? Thermostat stuck? Can you see if the water pump is leaking?

UpInTheLex

iTrader: (5)

Just because the coolant tank is full does NOT mean that there is any coolant in the radiator.

The system has to be TOTALLY sealed to work properly.

A leaking rubber seal on the cap or a slightly cracked coolant tank will give you problems like this.

I'd also like to know if your HEATER is working...

If you have no heat..... there's no coolant circulating in the coolant system.

bigmalik00

Get a Toyota/Lexus Thermostat. Cost a little more but it worked for me. Its in the front of the engine and yes you can change it.

mx73boy

Could honestly be a number of things:

- Clogged radiator. When the car is coming up in temperature, feel around on the radiator, if there's cold spots, you might have a clog.

- Stuck Thermostat. Try taking the thermostat OUT completely, the car will run a lot cooler, and this is perfectly safe.

- Bad Radiator cap.

- Blown headgasket.

vangb2

iTrader: (2)

Take out thermostat, you have to change it anyway sometime. So do it now. Check the thermostat for any seized area. Use a new one. If it helps, that's your problem and it's the cheapest.

Buy a flush kit for $5 and flush your system.
Buy a new radiator cap.

Before adding pure anti-freeze after the flush, you can use water to fill your system and run it for about 30 minutes to a hour to see if it still overheat. It will help you save a little money to confirm if its the thermostate that is causing the overheat.

jmcmiller

I am so greatly thankfull for all your responses......I finally got fed up with it and took my car into the shop, all to find out that the water pump was not working. So it only cost me $120 to get it fixed. Now my car is not over heating...and I also had them to change out the thermostat as well for another $50. My car now runs really good. Again thanks for all your help....

HeisLegend

glad you got it fixed.

Although, where the HELL did you find someone to replace (considering labor and parts) a waterpump for 120 bucks?
That's usually an expensive job on our SC4's considering you have to take off half of the world to get to it.

jmcmiller

well my husbands friend works at a part store and gives him really good deals and my father has his own shop...so we picked up the parts and my father fixed it for us. Thank God! I no if I would have went some where else I would have paid with my arms and legs...LOL

HeisLegend

maybe even a torso.

Just got mine back on the road today from doing everything you just did!!!
Feels good.

jmcmiller

great...but guess what??? my damn starter went out now so the car is being fixed...i won't drive it until everything is completed on it....

pcolex

My SC400 was overheating the same as in this thread. I tried EVERYTHING - replacing the thermostat, flushing the system, burping it for air locks, etc. The heater was blowing cold, so it appeared the coolant wasn't moving through the block. After many hours of tearing into this thing, sure enough, the water pump was bad. The impeller somehow broke away from the shaft,so there was no way to pump coolant through the block. Now on to the cleaning and assembly process.