ok i was working on a 03 Dakota 4x4 3.9L...

first things first, the guy said it over heated on him, and coolant was pouring out...he filled the entire thing with straight water....

i looked at it, and the water pump pulley had alot of play in it...it was misfiring as well...replaced water pump and thermostat...bled it out, everything worked fine for about 2 days...

2 days later it over heated and was blowing out coolant again...looked like it was comming from the spout on the over-fill resivoir.

i replaced the thermo again, and had no problems...then i did a full tune up to it, and it was running fine...

Now it overheated again, the oil is bone dry (was full 5 days ago) and theres black in the coolant, and he said he took a piece of rubber/hard plastic piece out of the coolant resivoiur, it was about 3-4 inches long he said...

now if it were headgasket, i thought that would fill the oil with coolant, not fill the coolant with oil....does this sound like a headgasket? im going to look at it today.

 

ok i just checked it out....theres no coolant in the oil, and the oil was fine...dont know why he said it was dry...but i checked for leaks and theres no leaks whatso ever...im thinking that it need a coolant flush...maybe somethings plugged up?

 

wow dakota section sucks...thanks for nothing

 

who is this "he" that fed you all this bad info?

are you overfilling the system? proper mix?

 

Pressure test the cooling system, do compression test on the engine. These 2 checks should tell if you have a good cooling system and if the engine is in sound shape. Please, do not use $1.99 t'stats, use someting good.

If good compression and no cooling system leaks, start with a cooling system cleaning.

Is the radiator hot, top to bottom, side to side?

PS, this site doesn't "suck", sometimes members don't check in every hour. Patience is requested and insults are not welcome.