Alright, first things first, its a 2002 OZ 160,000 miles on it


Mods: srs n1 cat back exhaust
obx headers and high flow cat
home made polyeurothane mounts
Sprint lowering springs

This is my daily driver and sole means of transportation for me and my family. I work as a driver for Dominos full time (45 hrs week). I do live in texas and its been around 105-110 for past few weeks.



After my shift is done I chill in my car with the A/C ON for a min an call ppl up. I noticed one day that the temp guage was slowly rising up to 3/4, I turned the A/c off and BAM! it would creep back down. .... automatically thought it was cause it was a busy day took 32 diliveries in a 9 hour period, and it was about 103-110 from 11 am to 8pm, so thot it was just the heat. I drove it home no problems.....

heres the wierd part

The other day i had the same problem, automatically thought it was the t-stat. I went to orieleys got theier murrays t-stat, it looked odd from the get go, but thought lot of AM parts look difffrom OEm. It never went in flush on the top, so i thought maybe it was cause the old t-stat gasket was old and what not, and thats y it didnt go in flush. put the housing back on, started the car..... guess what? it red line over heated faster then than before, I imediatley shut the car off.

I let the car cool down, tested both the old and new t-stat via cup of water and the microwave for 1 minute. Surely the old t-stat never opened so that is deffinatley bad, the orieleys opened so i kne it was good... As I examined both t-stats, i noticed that the t-stat housing (on t-stat itself) by the return valve was way larger than the old 1, thus causing it to not sit flush ion the t-stat housing on the block due to a raised lip type ordeal inside the housing.

i took that one back, they had to special order another one. I went to autozone and got their duralast t-stat, witch looked much more promising, installed it and still got the same issue, temp gauge takes for ever to get to operating temp, but wen it is there, it isnt long before it redd lines maybe 1-2 minutes after reaching OP. Temp.

keep in mind im not driving the car, im just letting it idle in my driveway while the temp gauge rises.

i checked radiator hoses top is really hot while bottom is a lot cooler. ( is bottom hose supposed to be flattened? not sure if it collapsed or if it supposed to be that way). that tells me what? that the t-stat isnt working? but when i do a water test on the t-stat is opens..... maybe blockage in that hose?

I let car cool down, took cap off radiator, started car and waited for it to get warm to see if i saw coolant run through the radiator, it was flowing not a hole bunch but i could see the green coolant. I noticed that the coolant had a lil bit of bubbling along the sidwall of the radiator but on top of the coolant, little bubbles, like carbination.

1 thing i noticed is that when i turned on the heater I had no hot air what so ever when sittin in the driveway, now im not 100 on this since i do live in texas and rarley need the heater, but i do notice hot air as im driving blowin threw my vents, with the a/c off. with a/c on hot air blows when, im idle and coolish/cold blows when i accelerate.

I checked spark plugs for coolant, 1 had lot of oil on it, but rest looked fine.

took oil cap off no milky residue

looked in t-stat housing, found few small white chaulky residue , that i could scrape off with my finger nail.

ohhh yea, before all of this started, not always but id say 70 % of the time that i went in reverse i would see huuuuuge cloud white smoke commin out my exhaust, mostly under a moderate-heavy load in reverse, but i dont ever see it when reving engine, on scold starts or driving, ( i know i dont see it cause im driving away from it but i had ppl say they dont see any).

my ? is, what do yall think, my 2 options that im thinking are either water pump or head gasket, hoping its neither, just need to get this car to last till tax season, then imma junk this POFS car.

another thing,,, i checked my oil the other day after it started to overheat but never red lined, and it was full. now 2 days later I checked the fluid again, cause i heard my lifters ticking. said it was pretty much dry, just the tip had oil, i was like shiiiit. I went to auto zone got 2 quarts full synthetic penziol platinum 5 30 and a bottle of NoSmoke or StopSmoke,whateveri, but it seens to have stopped the smoking and got rid of lifter noise.

but between the white smoke in reverse then and now the overheatting issue i wanna say head gasket, but then the lower hose isnt getting hot but the t-stat is working, i wanna say the water pump , maybe heater core...

What are yalls ideas cause at this point im not sure if what im saying make sense, if you cant tell im reaaaaly frusterated, confused and maybe going a lil crazy as i do need this car to work and support my family,

 

My 2 cents are, if you didn't change the timing belt/water pump, you should have...maybe even for the second time at 160k. As far as the oil problem, maybe headgasket, maybe...but I don't know if it'd be my first guess. The radiator hose thing also, like you, makes me think water pump and I think an overheating can also cause oil to burn too, so maybe that's why it was low? just a guess on that part.