Ok, so after a very long, very tiring weekend! I took the truck out on my usual rounds to jobsites, but this time I finally had A/c!

Lets give a quick rundown of this weekend.

Friday-Paid Meineke $60 to vacuum pump and recharge my ac

Friday Night-A/C leaked out due to my own fault of some insulation being between the expansion valve and the evaporator

Saturday Morning: Fixed the expansion valve and Meineke recharged again at no charge (good to have a car shop as a customer!

Saturday Afternoon-Completely Destroyed the truck to find the one vacuum hose to the blend door actuator to allow it to blow through the vents (With the wife's help I found it!!)

Sunday Afternoon-Changed my month old brakes and rotors because the brakes sold to me were defective and caused grooves all in my new rotors! Also did my Oil Change (Changed to 10w-40 if that may be it let me know)

Monday Morning-Changed Cap and rotor trying to pinpoint where my rough idle is coming from. (IAC next)

I do have a 180* T-Stat in the truck, yet it seemed to be running hotter than usual today, it was 89 degrees with 60% humidity and the first time I have run the A/C this year. Was full of anti-freeze over the weekend, I can check again when I leave work in 15 minutes.

Is this hotter than normal during the summer? It definitely has my brand new fan clutch on overdrive working double time!




Also, this was the first day it moved away from the left side, has always hugged that since I put the 180* tstat in, wasn't the first hot day we have had either!

New water pump and upper radiator hose put on..maybe a month and a half ago!

 

My temp gage runs just like that all the time,, I not haveing any over heat probs at all,,

 

Yep, that's about where mine sits!

 

okie dokies, now I will say I sit at a stop light it goes up almost to the 1 in 210...and that fan clutch, sheesh, won't turn off until I drive it from that stop light, almost every stoplight I hit, that fan clutch engages.

 

Could just be a bad clutch for your fan,, But what do you mean by sheesh won't turn off untill you drive,,, Is that a noise you hear ???

 

Hate to worry you but it almost sounds like a water pump on its way out.. Of course if the heat is there the fan will engage... that's its job. If you replaced the clutch on the fan, the thermostat and the antifreeze it almost have to be either a blockage or the pump not pushing enough antifreeze.

 

Let us pray the water pump isn't on its way out considering I just changed it when I did the fan clutch and all.

Think I found my problem though, the old upper radiator hose didn't have a spring in it to keep it from bending when hot (we all know that turn to the top of the intake) looks like that is pinching a little bit. Guess I need to track down a spring, the other old radiator hose (I still have it, nothing was wrong with it, but decided it was time for a new hose since I had it off) was hard when I took it off, this hose is very flexible, guessing because it is rubber and gets heated up, will look into finding the hose support that goes inside the hose

 

Mine just completely pegged red on my way to work this morning. Running smoothly- gauge light comes on- look down and its pegged. Pulled over and let it cool down (of course the daughter is in the back seat on the way to day care and its pouring down rain) and was able to get back on the road blasting heat with the windows down. The temp gauge didn't look too stable- and tacked up a bit when I was stopped for a long period of time at one light. The strange part was that it actually seemed to drop lower than usual a couple of times. The car is a 2000 5.2 liter with 150K miles on it and has already had the water pump replaced twice...holding my breath.

What can I do to pinpoint the problem? Thanks in advance!

 

Look at your hoses, coolant levels, pull the thermostat (I know easier said than done,) those would be my first checks, pull the tstat and drop it in boiling water and see if it opens up, if everything else is fine and the tstat opens, I would say water pump, any belts squeaking sounds or anything? my truck was making a belt squeaking sound, and it was the water pump blades rubbing

 

Little bit of belt squealing when the car is just starting but nothing over the top. Car has actually been running really really well the past year. I'll do the below (when it stops raining). How tough is it to pull the thermostat? I'm a mechanical layman. Any tools needed other than what is found in a typical non-auto tool box?