my buddies 02 has been overheating, jumps up to the red, then sometimes drops back down rather quickly 8 seconds or so, other times have to turn it off and pour water on it.

so far the fan clutch and upper/lowers have been replaced. if the water pump is bad why would it cool downsometimes?

also the fan clutch gets loud sometimes, maybe the temperaturespring is messed up onthe fan clutch?

any thoughts wouldbe great.

 

Did You Replace The Thermostat?

 

had the same problem last weekend. my temp didnt go up and down and i dont know why its doing that.. but i replaced my water pump and thermostat and works great now. however i knew it was the water pump bc there was no coolant flowing through the engine and when i pulled it out the propeller was cracked in half. how do you know if you need a fan clutch? my has a tiny bit of play in the fan...could this be the clutch or is it normal to have a tiny amount of play?

 

Fan clutches will have a little play in them and it i normal. You will know when your fan clutch goes out because it will typically do one of these three things: 1) Lock up and stay fully engaged all of the time, it will sound like you just started it up all of the time and your gas mileage will suck, but you will not overheat. 2) It will free wheel all of the time and this will cause you to overheat and 3) it will squeak when the bearing starts to go out and it will sound like a little mouse under the hood. Hope that helps the fan clutsh questions. As far as the overheating I would start with a thermostat; it sounds as if it is sticking closed every now and again.

 

It was the water pump, totally lose, didnt take long to get to, hardest part was getting the fan clutch off with no air tools.

auto shop wanted 400 to replace it.... 60 bucks for the pump and a 12 pack of beer worked just fine.

 

Does he have any idea what pouring cool water on a hot engine will do?

 

should have been more specific, damn towel on block or using mist feature on hose.