mr-prl

First off wanted to thank the thread for helping me find the Coolant leak. It was a cracked lower thermostat housing. Was quite actually hard to determine where the leak was coming from just by looking. After replacing the Water pump / belt / thermostat / pulley since i already had things apart and the motor had 100k.

Now a Rant, from a lifelong Chevrolet driver, I'm guessing the Plastic Housing is some sort of Bean Counter engineering feat. This type of engineering is so unnecessary and could have ended up potentially costing thousands had the motor been driven hot and blown a head gasket, cracked a head etc....

Anyway thanks and we hope to get another problem free 100k with all normal type maintenance completed.

tx_zstang

+1 on that. Wonderful design.
Funny, though, most people instantly think its a head gasket leak. I was at a local track one night, v6'r had his hood up, I went over and he said he blew a head gasket. I helped him out and showed him the thermostat housing leaking, which made him feel better. I think he was going to catch hell for "tearing up the car at the track", which had nothing to do with the already-cracked t-stat housing...it was going to go at anytime anyways.

Glad to see y'all all got the 'head gasket' fixed, lol.

rsfdiver

Wifes car is overheating with the A/C on sitting in 97deg heat in line to pick up daughter. Happened 2 days in a row. Once cooled down and running seems to be no problem.
I will check the things you all talked about and hopefully it isn't a head gasket. It hasn't done it while out rodaying just when sitting at idle in the heat.

tx_zstang

THe cooling fan may not be turning on; it's a fairly common problem (the resistor in the low-speed circuit burns through).
Head gaskets are not usually an issue with these cars.

mustang country

I just realized this problem today. I was on my way to an auto body shop to get my hood painted when halfway there, the temperature gauge started to go up. Lucky for me my uncle has a garage nearby because smoke was starting to come out of the hood. He said the plastic housing on the thermostat could be cracked.

Audrick Haist

So I bought this car from my girlfriends farther about a month ago, he didn’t notice any issues with coolant and has driven it across states, well the car has 81,xxx miles no reason a head gasket should blow, luckily, I have not lost any compression yet do to I caught the coolant leak soon enough, it was seaping out of the head gasket on the right side, yes I am gonna replace both of them by the way, even thought about studding them beings all the people on the internet having their gaskets leak too and it being a cast iron block and aluminum head and at the temperature they both expand being different. However with the first post being nearly the same issue as me. I thought I should share what I found out. As well as I will let you know we found out officially by running to oriellys, jacking up the car in the parking lot and hooking a pressure tester to the radiator, we even checked serveral times again after cleaning them off and re pressurizing. The leak on mine starts at around 8PSI on the pressure tester. And we mainly noticed it with the AC compressor on.

JJHoover

there are also some freeze plugs under the intake plenum, I thought it was a cracked thermostat housing wound up being the freeze plugs.