grogan

the line thats next to the firewall is the fill side as what the haynes manual says


i just yanked my a/c out of the car about 30 minutes ago so i was reading that part in the book lol

SXGT

so after squirting just a little in, my car smells like freon , BADLY I guess thats the sign of a leak, I could so see the stuff coming out of the vents.

Then today on a side note, my car started getting hot, needle over the L in NORMAL and I could hear a knocking noise when I touched the gas, like vales rattling.. WTF pulled over and poped the hood, the radiator reservoir had leaked out water a lot. But My big worry was the knocking noise. Also my coolant is orange and cloudy, is that rust or the result of me using leak stopper at one point.

LS WHAT

if you smell Freon in the car then more then likely a evaporator leak, you can access it from under the dash I believe and its connected to the black cylinder looking reservoir against the firewall.

Never use (IMO) stopleak in your radiator, it gets everywhere in the water channels, you should flush out the radiator and fill it with distilled water (about 1$ a gal at walmart) run it and flush it, if you have a leak you should let a radiator shop fix it or buy another radiator.

The car was knocking because it was so hot, I hope you turned off the car.
If there is no puddle of water under the car afterwards the motor should be ok.

Good Luck

SXGT

yeah I coasted into a gas station and let it cool off some. Then figured I was close enough to make it to my house to swap cars.

As for the radiator, I flushed it last summer or 2 already.


So I can take out my middle dash peice and acess this leak? Take out the radio, etc etc? What do I do once I have acess??

LS WHAT

my friend, removing the evap is a major job! you can see the housing if you remove your glovebox door. I would pressurize the system and make sure it's leaking from the evap, I'm sure it is if you can smell freon in the car. I will get you instructions if your sure you want to tackle this job.

grogan

the dash comes out with 8 bolts, 2 on the driver side door, 2 on passenger side door, 4 in the center console behind the carpet. its a 7 or 8 mm bolt. then the fun part is disconnecting all the wires. take pictures..i forgot to and im trying to remember in my head how to reconnect everything.

SXGT

dang, well my AC is not OUT just kinda wussy. NO need to pull my dash out.

LS WHAT

you wouldn't have to take the dash out, I would remove the passenger seat before the dash.

SXGT

So after the car cooled off i looked at the coolant level and my reservoir was EMPTY. I filled it up, took 40oz of water.

So i drive 3 miles and its fine, I park and do something for 40 minutes. I get back in. On my way back it starts getting hot, the needle goes all the way to the L on NORMAL. I get home and turn it off. I pop the hook and I can hear the water churning in the reservoir but nothing had seeped out like last time.

I also had the heat on vent and max speed and the air didn't feel hot just barely warm. Is this a thermostat problem and how do I diagnose a thermostat problem systematically?

LS WHAT

sound like maybe a waterpump problem, I personally have never had a bad thermostat;

Testing the thermostat

Pull the thermostat out, boil some water in a pan (if you have a thermometer try to get the temperature right around 200*) and before putting the thermostat in the water make sure its close, use a spoon or a fork and lower the thermostat into the water and just about instantly it should start opening.