When my roomate borrowed my Durango yesterday morning so he could drive to work, he told me my radiator hose split in half when he got to work (it basically fell apart). So he borrowed his friends car to go get a new hose so he could fix it then he filled everything back up to normal and was running fine the whole day. When Idrove to Wal-Martlastnightto get a few things it ran fine, but when I was half way back to getting home the Durango temp needle got half way up then itkept slowly inching up and up to where it was between half and overheat. It didn't get all the way up it just stayedin the one spot half way in between. When I finally pulled in the driveway it was steaming and the hose was hot. Thecoolant resevoir is still full andI just had the heater core replacedback in November 2006.[/align][/align]My question is: Is this due to a stuck thermostat?[/align]

 

it may just be air bubbles in your coolant line. I don't know the exact procedure to fix it, but I'm sure somebody on here does.

 

I'm sure that more than likely the system just needs to be bled. Let the D cool down and then pop the radiator cap and fill it up, start the engine and let it warm up adding coolant any time it goes down. I also squeeze the air out of the highest point of the upper hose. If it has been a while since you changed your t-stat then it wouldn't be a bad idea to change it anway they are supposed to be changed every 30k miles, just make sure to go with OEM or a quality name otherwise it could fail on you in a short period of time, I actually had one fail within a week of installing it.

 

Update: [/align]Well we changed out the thermostat. Started it up added more anti-freeze and squeezed out the air pockets as suggested, left it idling for about 30 min (stayed below half), took it driving in the city and on the insterstate and so far it has stayed below half like it's supposed to. I hope now it will start to run good again..see how it goes from here..[/align]

 

Glad to hear it was a simple fix. [8D]

 

Well I'm back again after 3 days and the same problem has started up again with it steaming and spraying from under the radiator cap. The temp guage keeps inching up and up past half and today it almost got to over heat. The resevoir is still full like it's not being used but everytime we add either more water or anti-freeze to the radiator the temp goes back down.

Could something be clogging up the resevoir tube making the radiator not recieve what's in the resevoir or is my water pump about to go out?

 

Pull the overflow hose at the radiator fill cap and take a hose with a jet attachment, hold it together and spray, if anything is plugging it up it might feel like it is being held back but keep at it and you will blow any clog out back into the overflow. After that let it drain and shoot any clogs as they come, keep doing this until you get all the crud out. I had mine plugged as well and that's how I dealt with it.

 

We did the radiator flush and also did a reverse flush from the bottom radiator hose where it spewed from the top of the radiator where the cap goes and hopefully flushed whatever was clogged. Lastnight when we started it up after filling itback uptherewas thissqueal coming from around thefront area (only way to describe thesqueal is that it sounds like when your cooking with a pressure cooker) but goes away as it warms up to normal temp. Will find out how it ran when roomate gets home from work since he took it work this morning. We also changed the oil as well since a friends mechanicsaid it might be a bad head gasket but the oil was fine, no water or anything in the oil so that probably couldn't be it.[/align][/align]I tried looking on the forums for "signs of a water pump going bad" but everything I read really didn't give a good description of what the signs are. This will be the next option if the temp goes up again. [/align]

 

The squeal is probably just coolant on the belt.

 

make sure ur cap is ok and that there is some sort of clamp on ur overflow hose at both ends there is a slight chance if there is pressure leaking from the system ur losing coolant then over heating