Thanks for all the feedback. Hope to get it "burped this weekend". I'll also check the fan. Will these two issues cause it to still overheat? Today at the bus stop I smelled antifreeze and the temp gauge went up quite a bit.

 

If you smelled anti freeze check all around for leaks and it you find no leaks check the reservoir. If it's low and you see no leaks check the oil and pray it's not looking like a milkshake in there.

It shouldn't overheat if your fan is operating correctly and the system is burped and no air in it.

 

It's the pickling effect of the alchohol that somehow tunes his brainwaves to other peoples'.

 

if you have air in the system and/or a bad clutch fan you will overheat, so the issues are likely related

 

Well it could also be the same thing that was wrong with mine.... the head gaskets.... just because there isnt a milky color in the oil dont mean there not blown ..... and with your truck overheating the heads could be warped now.... my truck was overheating cuz it was blowing exaughst into the coolant cauzing the truck to overheat ... this could happen by 2 things.. either gaskets are bad or .. the heads are warpped from being overheated.....good way to see if this is the problem is too wait till the truck is cooled down, take the cap off the radiator and start the truck ... then go look at the area where you took the radiator cap off and see if there are bubbles coming up to the top of the coolant ... if there is, thats not a good sign ... then i would take it somewhere and have somebody use the sniffer and see if there is gas coming up threw the coolant .. if there is then its headgasket time and milling the heads time.. also with the cap off the raditor when you first start the truck the coolant should suck down ... if the coolant blows out of the top then when i am thinking is right.. time to get about 1500 bucks and get rdy to fix your durango

 

I am about 1 hour north on I-15 from Layton. Tremonton is the last main city before the Idaho border. About 22 miles from the Idaho boarder right on the the I-15 - I-84 junction.

 

Engine is burped.. No signs of leaks anywhere. I think the burning may have been from spillage when we filled it before. The main engine fan is working fine. We heard another fan kick on yesterday when we burped it (had the Defrost on), but we can't see another fan. Guess I will give it a day or two and see what happens.

 

I can relate... I went through this for almost two months at one point. Over and over I kept following the steps to "burp" my cooling system. This was nothing new to me as I had done it many times before on other vehicles. What made no sense is that I could never seem to reach the end of the "burping" process. I would get almost all of the air each time and by the time I would check again the next night, same thing all over. Day after day I topped off my coolant and it just kept disappearing.

I should mention that there wasn't any sign of a leak. My garage floor would have a drop or two each day but nothing close to the half gallon I was pouring into it in the morning. I could always smell that sickeningly sweet smell of burnt anti-freeze around the engine bay.

I began assuming the worst (head gasket/internal issues) after two mechanics checked the cooling system and couldn't find the source of the air. Of course, they threw out "it's a head gasket" "these engines are notorious for that..." blah, blah... Something made me trust my gut, and I kept looking for another answer.

Finally, one day, I stopped by a real old school radiator shop near my work. There was one guy working there and I think he might very well have been the whole staff. However, this guy, unlike the other sh!te talking ******* that wanted to tear my motor down, actually knew about cooling systems.

First thing he did, checked my radiator cap. Didn't hold a single lb. of pressure. Check! Next, he checked my coolant level in the reserve. He immediately noticed that coolant had been blowing out of the overflow on the top of the reserve tank. To my surprise, he tells me that I have too much coolant and that I needed to drain some in order for it to function properly.

I ended up having him do a flush, change the radiator cap, leaving me with the proper fluid level and a pressurized cooling system. (IHO) One shouldn't need to "burp" these systems. He said that they will naturally level themselves out by utilizing the internal pressure / relationship between the reserve and primary systems.

Don't shoot the messenger on this one, I realize I'm a "newb" and that's cool. I'm just sharing what ended up solving my problem and keeping me from a whole lot of unnecessary time & effort that would have gone into pulling my heads.

For me, it ended up being my fan clutch that started everything. That was the catalyst when the truck started overheating. Beyond that, I learned two major lessons... #1 - Read as much as you can on your vehicle specific forums before accepting the worst case scenario. #2 - If you come across an old man running an entire radiator shop by himself in the middle of the ghetto, you can trust that he knows what the hell he's doing!

GG

 

The other fan you're hearing is your electric fan that's located between your clutch fan and radiator. If you have your engine off and look in there you should see it, it's in a black casing and much smaller than the clutch fan.

As for not needing to burp the system, I believe it's 100% crucial to burp it once you do a fluid flush. Air in the lines can cause it to overheat horribly and to me, if its my daily driver I'm not gonna wait for the pressure to even it out. Plus in theory theres no way for the air to escape once it's pressurized flowing in the engine.

Just my .02 but if it's a now and again driver that doesn't see the road everyday, I can see possibly relying on it to get the air out of the lines independently.

 

As luck would have it, the car overheated again today. Smoke and all..
It was after about 20 minuted of on and off driving. Left work and had to run three errands before the bus stop. I shut the car off at each stop for 3 to 5 minutes each time. At the bus stop the temp gage started going up. Left the bus stop and got within 5 houses of mine and temp gauge topped out and smoke came out when I hit the driveway. My bro thinks maybe water pump. I just dunno anymore!