Okay, well here's a little background. It's a 99 with the 3.1. Anyways, it's my buddy's car but whenever he drives, the temp gauge all of a sudden gets super super hot and over heats. (Mind you, we live in Minnesota.. there's no way it's going to get that hot in 3 minutes). Anyways.. he says he shuts it off, turns it back on.. the temp guage continues to fluctuate and he can't drive over 2k RPM. We just replaced the lower intake manifold gasket and some other seals and whatnot. The problem still persists. Anyone else ever have a problem like this? The car is at like.. 210K miles I do believe. But we're running outta options..

 

thermostat maybe? I don't know much about cars, but my t-stat is screwed and it has mine running cold (new one on the way)

 

If the Car is Heating-up that fast ... AND ... Critically overheats such that driving it is going to be a real bad idea ... I would say you need to have a Water Pump and a Thermostat.

They are tied together ... so to speak. If the Pump goes bad and the Thermostat gets overheated bad ... the ability of the Thermostat is compromised by it not being able to regulate the temperature. The Stat overheats and it's function is lost.

A case as severe as you describe is most likely the Water Pump. It may have frozen-up and No water is circulating throughout the cooling system. If the Heater is working although the temperature of the engine is on-the-rise ... you need and H2O Pump. Not an unusual part to need to replace every now and then after year of service!

 

it was doing this before the lower intake correct?

what is the reason it cant be driven over 2k rpm?

does it overheat only when driven, or will it over heat if you just let it idle long enough?

 

Is it really heating or is the gauge just saying it's hot? The sending unit gizmo for thegauge on my mom's old truck was bad. The guage said it was boiling over, but it wasn't.
If not that, I'd check the water pump, and the radiator may be gunked up too.

 

Well, he just told me that the radiator is fine. Although it hadn't been flushed in a long time, it seems to be fine. I'll tell him about the water pump, (thats what I thought it was too).

2000ls, the reason we changed the intake was cause of this issue. We brought it to a dealer and thats what they diagnosed it as. Also, after we fixed it, we let it idle and the temp gauge still went up. The engine itself isn't over heating, but yeah.. it thinks it is..

 

The overheating my have affected the Temperature Sender, too. You'll get an Overheating Display even though the Engine is Normal if the Sender has been ruined from being exposed to an overheated Engine several times.

Do the Pump, thermostat and Sender and you should be good to go. Don't run it hot because you might wind-up needing Head Gaskets if the Temperature goes too high and the Head Gaskets blow out at the Water Jacket In & Outlets.

 

Okay. I will let him know and we'll try all this.. hopefully. Thanks alot. Further help is still appreciated until we finally figure it out! I'll keep you all posted.

 

Just to get some more info on this as it might just be a gauge issue as well... What happens when you turn on the heater? Does it throw super hot air or still cooler air.

If the temp is actually like 200+ it will throw hot air, but if it is only throwing cool air and reading that it is more likely the gauge is the problem.

 

If the problem IS the Water Pump ... the Heater should NOT be putting-out good heat. There wouldn't be good FLOW through the Heater Core. Therefore, the air passing over the Heater Core would soon cool the contents of the Heater Core and the Heater would not be putting-out it's correct volume of heated air as it passes through the Heater Core.

The Engine would still be in an Overheat situation and the Air coming-out of the Heater Vents would NOT be getting the heating effect because Water is not passing through the Heater Core.