i new here and have a few questions from my fellow horse lovers. I just picked up a 87 gt 5spd and it's all original and very clean. The problem is that it sat for many years in a garage. I've already replaced starter, battery, air filter, had a engine flush, but the real problem is how to get the brownish color water out of it. I had the radiator flushed and still is brown. Is there a trick to it or is my cooling system jacked? Please help.

 

You'll probably need to flush it out a few times. The brown color is probably either rust or sludge. Drain the coolant and just flush it with water -- keep going till it stays reasonable clear. (Prestone or someone used to make a piece you could splice into your radiator hose and attach a hose to.) Then drain and fill with regular coolant.
You may want to check into a new radiator and/or heator core though -- if the color is from excessive rust, they're probably NFG anyway.

 

You need to flush the motor. Drop the lower hose from the WP. Remove the upper hose from the thermostat housing. Then grab a garden, turn it on to medium pressure (this works best with on eof those pistol grip things on the garden hose), then insert that into the thermostat housing, slowly apply water pressure otherwise itll squirt in your face. Then youll notice out the lower hose will come out all the crap thats in the motor. Itll run green/brown for a while then slowly but surely itll become clear. Once its totally clear, simply reattach upper and lower hoses, fill the radiator with coolant.
Then start the car and let it run until it reaches full operating temp. Topping off the radiator as neccessary.
-P.

 

so there shouldn't be any damage to the engine, from driving it like that for a week until i noticed it.

 

No,but I would keep on top of the rust and beware of head gasket leaks.Rust can eat through the head gaskets and cause them to fail.

 

thanks, so i think I'm going to replace the radiator though, once the rust is all flushed out.

 

Just flush out the cooling system real good, and keep an eye on your temp gauge. If it reads normal then you're fairly safe. You can take off the rad cap (cold engine!) & look inside see how things look, also look at the front & back of the rad. If all appears OK then save your money & keep that rad till you NEED to change it

 

thanks for the advise, we'll do

 

for the first time i ran her hard today on freeway for a few miles, and when i stopped i noticed the temp was almost in the red. I just had the radiator flushed a few days ago. Is there any reasons why it ran hot like that. Should i change the t-stat. theres no leaks that i can see in the cooling system.

 

If the temp didn't climb to RED fairly quickly then that means the thermostat probably did open properly, but chances are the rad is 50% clogged & can't handle high heat loads. So you probably need to replace the rad after all. And while your at it go ahead & swap the thermostat too.. they're cheap