car getting hot, need help/ideas

[Jac Mac]

The gasket is made in such a way that the water has to flow along the cylinder head, then down into the block through holes in the gasket, along the block, and out of the engine.

Jimbo, you have this backwards-------------- The coolant flow is in the front of the BLOCK, up thru the rear of the block / heads, then forward thru the heads to exit via intake & t/stat housing. Hope you have some of the other plumbing circuits that you may be more familiar with sorted out!

 

[Jac Mac]

I'm not sure why someone has not put a sketch of a system that works so I will. My car has a 375~400 horse 302 and runs at 180~185 while driving and will sit and idle until it runs out of gas. The fan will come on when it's sitting and cool it from 190 back to 165~170 and will shut off. I will tell you that for the first four or five drives after filling the system and bleeding it the best I can, I get temp spikes from steam pockets up to 220 for a few seconds at a time. (it seems like a lot longer with the temp that high but it's not) After a few 20 minute drives it seems to normalize and no further problems. I hope this is of some help to you and good luck. I got this picture off the forum a while back, it's not mine but I used it and it works.

Steve

This drawing needs one additional line ( small dia -3 ) from the manifold side of the t/stat to the top of the header tank ( below pressure cap ) to purge any air from the motor rather than pump it forward to the radiator. Any motor that is being worked hard will always be creating air bubbles from either slight Head Gasket leakage or nucleate boiling in hot spot areas such as ex valve seats etc.