Now what???

[86VickyLX]

?? dont know what a fan clutch is. sorry I'm just a noob

Fan clutch is the thing mounted to the water pump. It's after the actual blades of the fan. If the clutch is good, it will stop turning as soon as the engine is shut off. It might be best to have another person to check it while you turn the car off. If it continues to turn after the engine is shut off, the clutch is bad and that's most likely what is causing it to overheat. It's only when you're not driving it right?

[Rojas109]

He makes a good point.

Rojas, does it smell hot, or does the gauge just read that its hot?

I know I tried to hook up my factory gauge and AM gauge to the same sender (should have known better). They both went hay-wire. Start the car and the AM gauge read 250. WTF?

I'm thinking that if the sender is damaged, the gauge may be off. However if it smells hot (almost like antifreeze; or if you can here bubbling), then theres a more serious problem.

well if it is the sensor would'nt it not read at all? for example this morning i went for a drive and it seemed that everything was back to normal, but unfortunatly it wasnt cause its took it time but quickly shoot back up. if the sensor was bad it wouldnt read at all or just be stuck in one positions. or read Hot/cold all teh time...

i ask a friend and he said it might be the thermastat. i dont know what this is ,so, could any of you mangs be kind enought and fill me in on what it is?

[gadget73]

its possible for senders to get flaky. The oil pressure sender in my Dakota did that, the gauge would go all over the place. The stock in-dash gauge isn't necessarily gospel anyway. Mine will swing from O to L with about 10 degrees of actual difference on my after market gauge. Before replacing the sender, it ran on M, now its normally on O or R. Its hard to get any true idea of exactly how hot the car is or is not with that gauge.

[packman]

Is the temp guage shooting up when you turn the car off or when you're driving? If it is after you shut it off then it is just heat soak. If it does while you're driving, then it could be what tjltd said.


Packman

[Rojas109]

when i'm driving, or when its just ideling, its not immediatly, it takes some time like 5-10min of driving/ideling to get to Hot.

and when i turn off the car the gauge goes down a bit. not up from head soak.

[packman]

Hmmmmmmm....that's wierd. My Malibu used to do the same thing in traffic. After like 20 min. of sitting and idling the temp would go up to 240* until I start moving and it would go down to normal temps. I once baked the trans waiting in traffic for an hour and a half; and that was at night with a four core radiator.
I would start with a temp sensor check (though I don't know where the oil temp guage is on these cars). They shouldn't be that expensive. Check the fan clutch. And finally see if your radiator is up to snuff cooling a nearly 20 year old engine.


Packman

[Rojas109]

well i disconected the electrical plug and reconnected. one of the two clips that holds it in is broken off, but it still hold in well. then i went for a drive and it stayed in normal range never went past a. this was a 30min drive too so it had plenty of time to go to HOT like it did before.

but before it never wanted to go past o in normal range, even driving for 1hr on teh highway. but hey its better then reading HOT all almost immediatly... still ganna look into this though.

[86VickyLX]

On the high way, whar about just sitting and idling? If it gets hot then, it's a fan clutch. If it stays at the norm, you're fine.

[OldBlue1981]

I too had this problem but everything is okay. My car would do the exact same thing. If I'm going down the road, the oil temp. is perfectly fine. After a long period of driving and then letting the car sit, the temperature will go back up. It's very odd. Everything is okay though.

[gadget73]

If you shut down a hot engine, it will increase temperature just from heat soak. Its normal, as long as it goes down when you start the motor again and the water begins to circulate its not cause for concern. If its getting so hot that it starts to boil after being shut down, then it was probably borderline overheating to begin with.