I have a 2001 Dodge ram 1500 5.9. about 6 months ago the radiator was leaking. i was away on work. away from a garage. i did the forbidden.. put in stop leak. No problems untill tonight. truck is now over heating and no heat! help! I was driving home tonight and noticed the truck was running hot at 210 normally 190. got home shut er off. steam was pouring from the cap and the right radiator wall( where it was leaking months ago) noticed that the cap wa loose and not pushed down and in the lock postion like it should have been. coolant spilled out from what it looked like. check the overflow tank and it was chaulk full with some leaking out. waited for it to cool. looked in rad. was dry, no coolant. filled it up. did the zsame thing again. all ended up in the overflow tank!

Help! what could this be!

 

new water pump. or radiator. the stop leak never works, and it ends up messing up more things.

 

Yeah. thats what i had in mind. im going to tackle the project tomorrow. i just replaced the thermostat two weeks ago but they say that you should when you replace a radiator, should i change it again? how difficult is it to tear down the water pump? thanks!

 

take your time with the diagnosis and be sure of what's wrong.

you can remove the t-stat to provide maximum cooling and eliminate the t-stat from the problem list. the downside to that is your truck will run cool, likely set of a check engine light (1281 or something, too cool), and you'll have little/no heat.

you should make sure that your radiator is not still leaking. it sounds like your original leak might have cracked open larger. you can get a new radiator for about $100 on ebay. shops can rebuild/repair those side tanks, but it may not be worth the trouble...

you might have a simple radiator leak, or it could be hose, t-stat, water pump, head gasket, etc, etc....

 

thanks for the tips guys. It turns out my t-stat was stuck closed. and my radiator was leaking, and my water pump was bad. got slamed with all three at once. what luck eh? but replaced all. got a radiator at the bone yard for 75 bucks. looks near perfect and works great. got a new water pump and t-stat from advance about 100 dollars later my truck runs a drives like a champ again. actually runs a little cooler then before! thanks for the tips.