Ok I've got a 2005 Dakota that keeps overheating. I'm trying to rule out head gasket for the following reasons. No white smoke out the tailpipe, no water in oil, no oil in water, not losing water out of radiator. But my only sign of possible blown head gasket is when I'm bleeding air out of lines with the cap off it seems to have little bubbles every 5 sec or so but only like five to ten little bubbles then 5 sec later five or ten more little bubbles an so on and so on. I flushed out radiator 3 or 4 times and used a radiator flush once and the truck started to run fine for 2 or 3 days and now it's back to overheating. If I don't run the ac it seems to just run a little over normal but as soon as I turn on the ac again the temp gauge starts climbing. My only concern is the bubbles with the radiator cap off!!! Would the small bubbles be coming from head gasket or is that normal???

 

Oh yea I for got to ask. Would you be able to cool the truck down by running cold water from waterhose over the radiator if it was the head gasket?? Because when I run the water threw the radiator it cools down the truck!

 

my mom has a 2004 dodge dakota and u cant even drive half a mile with out it overheating, we put a new fan in, there plenty of water. before we put a new thermostat in it was doing fine.

 

I will move this to the 3rd generation Dakota sub-forum.

 

Are you losing coolant? Have you checked the thermostat? Is the water pump working good? Any leaks from the weep hole? You could buy one of those kits that measures if there is any exhaust gas in the coolant, connects to the radiator. Never used one, but I've seen videos on you tube showing how they work. IDK if you could blow a head gasket and not have water coming out somewhere.

 

I've replaced thermostat, sending unit and water pump. When it starts overheating I can run the waterhose threw the radiator and it goes back to normal. If the head gasket was blown would I be able to do that?

 

What exactly do you mean by "run the waterhose threw the radiator"?

 

He means spraying the radiator with water. I think that the radiator on our truck is so marginal that the slightest bit of restriction or build up of dirt or bugs in the a/c condenser or the radiator causes the truck to overheat. I would recommend taking a pressure washer to the condenser and washing it out thoroughly and then trying the truck again to see if it helped. I have to do this myself.

 

I'll try that but it looks clean. A few days ago I ran radiator flush threw the radiator and drove it, the temp ran normal even with the ac on and outside air temp 104. And now it's slowly getting worse. The first day it ran hot I pulled over and let it cool down. I turned on the heat ful blast and it went to 3/4 temp. I slowly creeped home. The next 5 or 6 days it ran normal. Then it would run slightly above normal and eventually I couldn't go more than a few miles till it started overheating. I changed the thermostat with no change with over heating and then changed water pump with no change in temp. I then ran the flush threw it it started running normal. Now it's back to overheating again. I'm really hoping that it's not the HG. I'm a small town police officer so everybody knows I can't afford it lol.

 

Ok I just went outside and pulled off the top of my radiator. I used a flat blade screw driver and went all around the plastic top cap and took the top off. And what a relief lmao. It's 75 percent stopped up. No wonder it's over heating