alright this is sick. My sis drives a 95 5.0 and her car ends up on side of road overheated, smoke pouring out from under the hood, and you could smell it from inside the car. so it gets towed home, where a radiator guy comes in and replaces the radiator, he finds corroded stuff in there, so he fixes it. well, he thought he had fixed it. my sister goes to drive to class, and it overheats again, same thing. so what now? well we took out the thermostat to see what that would do, but we let it run and smoke was pouring out of the exhaust bad, smoke from near the fan was comin out. fan is not runnin for some reason. mind you, i did fill the radiator with a mix of water AND coolant and have kept adding it. radiator guy says keep adding coolant, thinks coolant is not makin it through engine. dont know what the problem is guys, i hope you can help me.

 

If there was a lot of crap in there probably the waterpump is going out. She also may have overheated it so bad that she blew the head gasket. If the fan is a beltdriven fan then it is not spinning because of the waterpump is locked up. but if it is electrical then it is probably causing it to over heat at idle. on the open highway its ok.

 

it's not really over heating @ idle, but the smoke pours out like a leak is somewhere, but its comin from the fan/back of radiator. but its either a blown head gasket, or a dang expensive water pump? the fan is electrical, so does the fan not running have anything to do with the thermostat being out? we let the car run in neutral till smoke was puring out of the exhaust, and smoke was really comin out from under the hood. thanks for the help so far.

 

try replacing the water pump and while its off, flush the system clean. and put a high flow thermostat in. if that doesnt do it, it may be the head gasket.

do a compression test to check to see if its the head gasket

 

how much you figure a water pump to be? and flush the coolant from the car? or everything? but again i ask, would the fan not working.... have anything to do with the absence of a thermostat? it seems like if the fan was blowing it would make the car run. is there anything else besides the water pump, and the head gasket that could possibly be wrong with it? she doesnt have much money when it comes to her car, which upsets me cuz shed rather spend her money on clothes, so she isn't goin to have the cash to throw a new water pump in if its not needed, plus a new head gasket which is huge $$$. hopefully its something minor, but i have no idea about cars yet. im gonna take it to our school auto dept. and id like to be able to tell them what to look for. thanks again for the help guys.

 

my water pump was $35 at autozone

 

nope thats a head gasket for sure sorry but time to pull the heads

 

remove the radiator cap when the engine is cold and then start it up and watch the coolant in the radiator for bubbles forming. if you get lots of bubbles, then you have a blown head gasket for sure. this is also usually accompanied by lots of white smoke coming out the exhaust pipes too. get the local auto shop guys to do a compression test first thing to confirm this diagnosis of the problem.

 

alright so fill me in... would a blown head gasket, keep the fan from turning? or is there a simpler approach? also im still learning... where is the head gasket.. and what does it do? what does it cost... all i know is that it is expensive. thanks again guys.

 

that is for sure a head gasket and now it would not of caused the fan to stop working but the fan might off stop working before and then it caused the car to overheat and boom you blew a head gasket or maybe even cracked the head or block because it overheated