I need some advice. My vehicle has been overheating. The radiator was replaced in 2012 along with a flush and the coolant is clear. There are no leaks, and I checked the oil, no problem there. It is a 1997 Grand Voyager 3.3L. This problem is not really vehicle specific so I'd like to keep the issue here.

I thought maybe the electric fans were not working so I wired them directly. I had a fail-safe thermostat and it was locked open. I replaced the radiator cap and upper and lower hoses and coolant again while I was studying about this and reading the factory manual. New temp sensor also (there is only one).

I pulled the water pump and found a chunk of thick black plastic about 7/8" square (sort of) that was partially blocking the water pump outlet. The engine has 118,000 miles on it, but the water pump looked fine and wasn't leaking. I put a new one on. It still overheated. I wondered where the plastic came from.

I drained the radiator today. Both hoses are on the same side, inlet at the top and outlet to the water pump at the bottom. The cap is on the other end. I rolled up a piece of white paper and slid it into the upper hose connection and shined a bright light on it. I went to the bottom and put a mirror in the lower hose connection. I could see there is a large hole in the barrier between the two tanks and I could see the light. I removed the radiator and cut the side of the tank out with a portable band saw. The divider (center wall) is broken all the way around the inside of the tank and half of it is gone. The other half is sort of stuck in the radiator. The water was circulating from the upper hose to the lower hose without going through the radiator. You would never know this was happening.

Here's the issue. I purchased the radiator from one of the common auto supply stores with a lifetime warranty. But now I have chunks of the radiator inside my engine. This overheating problem as been going on for a while and was hard on the engine. I called the corporate office today and they want me to get an estimate to fix any damage it has done.

What do you think will have to be done to fix this correctly?

 

I flushed out the radiator out with a garden hose on the driveway and didn't get any pieces of plastic out of any of the tanks.

The plastic entered the water pump through the lower radiator hose and was chopped up until the pieces that would go through the outlet into the engine. I didn't findany pieces of plastic in the thermostat housing or the upper return tank on the radiator.

When I changed the coolant a few days ago, I drained it all into a plastic tub and poured it back into the jugs with a funnel that had a screen in it. I didn't find any pieces of plastic in it. I drained it by removing the lower radiator hose and not the petcock.

If the engine could be back flushed and I could see that allof the plastic was recovered that might be one thing. I had to run the heater to get it home and I wonder if any pieces are in it. They wouldn't cause any damage there but they would just be missing pieces that could just as well be stuck in the water jacket openings somewhere.

I decided that I'm keeping the piece of plastic I recovered from the water pump and I'm not showing it to anyone. If the van ends up at a shop that claims they recovered it all by back flushing it, I'll insert my piece into the puzzle to confirm.

I wish I knew how long it took the radiator to fail, from just a small opening to the way it is now. It basically caused the cooling system to just becoming smaller and smaller until it didn't work at all and boiled over.It would have constantly overheated and then recovered in normal driving.

I picked up a rental car yesterday. I was told to take the van for estimates, but it has no radiator at the moment and I am hesitant to install another one just like it from the lifetime warranty. I need a good radiator.

 

Drained the coolant and back flushed the engine today with garden hose using some fittings from the hardware store. None of the plastic came back out of the engine.

I can't think of much more that I can try here. I'm supposed to turn in some quotes of what it will cost to fix the engine. The dealer is telling me that it will be very expensive if they have to tear down the engine and that it is impossible to give me a quote of what it will cost.


It's true the van is old (1997), but I have run Amsoil in it and kept it up. Everything works and it ran great. Jut put a new $500 set of Michelins on it and new struts, brakes, AC, headliner... I invested in it to drive it for a few more years.

 

If you replace the radiator, I recommend the Spectra Premium.

 

Well, for the moment, I'm using the radiator from the lifetime warranty. It looks like they have changed the design. I'm flushing with distilled water and adding a new 50/50 mix of antifreeze and trying to get it running again. From here I'll take it to couple of shops and get some estimates to remove the debris.


I'm not sure how they will accomplish it. The dealer is used to pulling engines so it may be easier to fix than I think it will.

 

A quick summary for anyone experiencing overheating, and can't figure out why, and you have changed and checkedeverything, new water pump, fan wiring, relays, cooling fans, thermostat, tempsensor, serpentine belt, radiator cap, flush, a fairly new radiator and you arenot loosing coolant, you might want to check this.

If your radiator has the inlet and outlet onopposite ends (engine hose to the inlet tank on one side and theother to the outlet tank on the other side) this does not apply.

If your radiator has both the inlet and the outlet hoses on the same side (or end), then there is a barrier or divider that separates the side tank into an upper and lower tank. The coolant flowsin thru the top hose (and tank) across the top half of the radiator to the opposite side ,then back again in the lower half of the radiator to the outlet tank and back to the engine thru the lower hose. If you take alook at the vast majority of major name brand radiators (the stores all have pictures of their radiators online), there is a notch in the side radiator tank halfway up between the hoses where this barrier is. This makes the barrier small and minimizes stress on it. The radiator I have does not have this notch and the barrier is the full width of the inside of the tank (the outside wall of the tank is straight). The stress on the larger barrier goes up exponentially with its width and it fractured all the way around the edge, the center and broke into pieces that were able to enter the water pump and cut or broken up enough to be pumped into the engine's coolant passages.

There's no way to know how long it leaked internally bypassing the radiator and simply cycling the hot coolant right backinto the engine. This radiator was only a few years old and looked perfect on the outside without any leaks. I wasn't the one driving the vehicle and no-one noticed the wandering heat temperature gauge until it became a real problem. The overflow bottle was full each time I did regular maintenance and Ialways thought the cooling system was great shape. I onlyuse distilled water and antifreeze 50/50 mix. The coolant was clear.


I drained my radiator and found the broken barrierwith a light, piece of white paper and a mirror in the hose openings. Right after that, I took a piece of vacuum tubing and ran it into the upper hose connection and it went down and I was able to just pull it out of the lower hose opening. It went right through. I sawed the side out of the radiator after that to get a good look at it.

The replacement radiator had the notch centered on the side of the tank at the barrier (divider) so the problem was fixed in this design. I'm putting it back together. Next stop is the dealer to see how theywill remove the pieces of the radiator that were sucked through the water pump and into the cooling passages. Nothing came out during the back flush.

I'm driving a little rental Nissan (reminds me ofa go-cart) to get around and have an open claim and number with the store toget this fixed.

 

You will probably never find the remains of that plastic. It has been chopped, pulverized, blended, melted, and absorbed by now. I doubt that there is a chemical that would dissolve it without doing serious harm to the engine. Anyway, is it still overheating with the new radiator? There's none stuck in the thermostat, I guess.

 

I replaced the radiator and the overall engine temp is ok. I took it to the local dealer and asked them what they thought. At first the service manager began talking about how small some of the passages in the cooling system were and that a portion could easily be blocked somewhere. Then he said he would have to tear the engine down. Next he said it would be cheaper to put in a new engine ($6500). He said Chrysler doesn't make the 3.3L engine anymore and that I would need to go to a shop and put in an aftermarket engine. I called a couple of local shops, but I don't have quote yet. I took the rental car back and have been driving the van around town. We have two vehicles so we have to have it. If the engine is toast, it's toast.

I haven't found any plastic in the thermostat. The only piece I did find was the one stuck in the water pump outlet which was a real problem.

You would like to think the chunks of plastic have just settled somewhere out of the way. If they circulate and manage to get through the thermostat, they would end up in the intake tank of the radiator and would go no further. They would have to be small. With the old radiator, the intake and output hoses were simply connected together and it is possible that pieces could have circulated if they were small enough to get through the thermostat.

I bought one of those reusable silicone thermostat housing gaskets and I've had it apart several times. I've had the new water pump off twice. All of this and a really good back-flush. I didn't recover even a small piece of plastic from all of that. I rinsed out the old radiator and hoses and didn't get any of the pieces out of that either.

I have always kept the van well maintained and everything works. It was my Dad's he had it for several years before he passed away and then I shipped it here. It had 15K miles on it. It's had Amsoil in it ever since and has 118K on it now. Jut put on a new head liner, new Mitchelins, struts, now everything in the cooling system. This van is basically my truck. I planned to keep driving it. This sucks.