Why are you assuming it's not the radiator? It sounds to me as if you have some type of foreign body in your system clogging your radiator. Have you ever put anything in your radiator to stop a leak?

 

I have reason to believe its blown from the bubbles. Most cars will self-bleed the system. If you have constant bubbles, the air is getting in somewhere. Also, the HG could have blown from the first time it overheated. Low coolant will cause it to overheat, which in turn blows the HG. I had this happen. Also, it will force a lot of your coolant into the tank, and just reading your first thread... "the measure on the dipstick reads full and the whole dipstick was covered but its damn near to the top in the container. maybe just 2 inches from the cap. maybe 3 inches?" Seems too full, maybe all your coolant was forced into the tank from the gasses pushing it out.

All I can say is HG is my first thought, and you should run a HG tester to make sure.

Check your oil and see if it looks milky or anything funky.

 

If you're getting bubbles in your coolant could be a head gasket blown that's letting exhaust into the coolant. . .hope not, but it's a possibility. Do you have a coolant smell to your exhaust at all?

 

oooo lol... lets sniff the exhaust system now... :P i can see it now.... haha... jk... but it is a funny picture in my mind

 

ok best bet is to go have the truck pressure checked. 80K you have loads of things. water pump leaking out the bypass could be leaking. intake could be leaking head gaskets also but you would have signs other then over heating. loss of power, clean plug, tail pipe smoke, also the coolent doesnt just evaperate its designed not to until temps about like 280 or something crazy like that. also there are 6 frost plugs that can be leaking. i have one leaking on my truck i add about a court of coolent a month because im too lazy to go replace it. bein that you live where you actually have to use the heater like me. im going to count out the heater core under the dash. and the clogging of coolent. because its been driving for 3 or 4 weeks.

your over heating because you low on coolent. there is no other answer. my suggestion is to fill the over flow and rad full run the truck a few day maybe a week. then check the overflow and see how much coolent you have lost.

and yes the heads on these motors are JUNK and CRACK all the time. my suggestion if you are going to do a head job. would be to buy new after market heads and rockers. and lift rods and might as well cam it too. and well the motor is ripped down. throw an M1 intake on it and be done will all the BS of the intake gaskets loss of power and everything else.

 

Let's back up... What have you tried, Josh? You are on here asking the same questions almost every week about your truck but never seem to come to any resolution. Are you even trying anything we are suggesting or are you just here for the hell of it? You haven't posted anything new and we have given you lots to work with...

 

ok josh here is my take on your issue, you have already replaced the t-stat and had the system bled, you now have air in the system, that means either fluid is leaking out and being replaced by the air (bubbles) or it is being forced into the coolant.

1) first i would tell you to check the radiator with an IR thermometer, it should fade nice a smoothly from top to bottom hot to cold iirc, if it doesnt, or has hot/cold spots on it, time for a new radiator (these thermometers are cheap 10-15 at harbor freight, buy one its a worthwhile investment)
2) i would get a compression tester and check all of the cylinders, i believe they should have about 150psi (i could be wrong on this, hydra will chime in with acceptable pressures) if anyone is low or 0 you have a cracked head or a bad headgasket and the bubbles you are seeing are exhaust pushed into the coolant.

in reality it only takes ONE overheating incident to do head damage, usually these trucks dont have a problem once(its usually only on repeated overheating) but it is possible that the damage was done the first time you overheated it.

3) i belive there is a way to test the coolant for exhaust traces, ask your mechanic, or check the auto store (maybe a DIY kit???) and check it out, also check the oil for coolant (milky oil) and the coolant for oil

do these things and get back to us

DO NOT CREATE MORE THREADS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

it just hurts you and makes our lives difficult

 

Do a hydrocarbon test at a local shop to see if in fact you have a head gasket issue.

Also do a compression test and state your findings.

 

I can tell you the oil is fine no milky residue.

Once the engine temp was up to normal operating temp i felt around the radiator and couldn't tell if there where any cold or hot spots. the vehicle was parked so the fan was going. but i didn't feel cold and hot spots on the radiator.

I'll call and stop by a few local mechanics and see what they say about it. and I'll ask at the auto parts store what they think.

hopefully its not a blown head gasket. but if it is i have a friend who is pretty damn good with cars who has already offered to help me change out the head gasket ourselves.

I hate to keep recreating new threads but i don't know how to re-update an existing thread so that its brought back to the top off the threads list on the 1st gen homepage.

Hate to be a pain guys and the last thing i want is to make things more difficult for you guys sense you're all trying to help.


But ok I'll try and look into the head gasket and radiator as possible targets.

And hydra i'll find out what a hydrocarbon test is and get it done. hopefully they are not to expensive. Are there any other common signs to a blown head gasket? theres no smoke or steam coming out fro under the hood and she feels fine driving no loss of power that i can notice.

 

And you're basing this info on what? There's a whole lot of 4.7's out there for them to be considered "junk". Yes, they require a bit more care (read that as "regularly scheduled maintenance") than the classic "old" motors, but they hardly qualify as junk.

Josh, listen to what everyone on here has been telling you for awhile now. Take the time and SOLVE THE PROBLEM, don't just keep trying band-aids. If you're constantly getting air into the system, it's coming from somewhere and it won't fix itself! Also, every time it overheats (and that doesn't just mean pegging the needle, it means going higher than normal) you're asking for trouble. For what it's worth, mine overheated ONCE (went to full gauge and sounded rough) but I also ran it up high (3/4 gauge) half a dozen times before I got smart about troubleshooting and found a bad head gasket / cracked head. Had I LISTENED to what my truck was telling me earlier I may have gotten away much cheaper with just a gasket.

A hydrocarbon test will detect leakage and may point at a head gasket, but I believe the definitive tests for it are a pressure / leakdown test (the coolant system is pressurized and monitored to determine if there's a leak) and a compression test where each cylinder is checked and compared to each other / specs. Usually one (or two adjoining) cylinders will show less compression than the others.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on the hydrocarbon test, I'm old school!

Bob