Is this my water pump bleeder?

[refugeefromcalif]

I grew up hearing, "The only Stupid Question, is the one Not asked."

Some background. My D has always ran cool even when the A/C was at Max in stop and go traffic.
A couple weeks ago I noticed the car running a bit hotter then I've seen it run before. I checked all my fluids and I noticed my coolant bottle was low. (I missed doing this for a month)... :eek:
Needless to say, I filled it back to about half full, (where it's always been before).

Since then the car runs hotter then it ever did while in traffic, (But doesn't get quite to 220 on the guage).
A/C has been running warmer then it ever has also. Granted, it's been Hot and Humid around here the past few weeks.

So, Here's my Stupid Question.
I want to Bleed the cooling system to eliminate it as an issue.
Doing a search on "bleeding coolant system", didn't show me a picture of the water pump bleeder.
(It Did allow me to read some Interesting comments from a few Banned members about how they do it)...

Is This the bleeder on my water pump?

http://dmctalk.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=21887&d=1378849635

George

[Tillsy]

Is This the bleeder on my water pump?

Yes.

Plus you also need to bleed at the radiator by either popping off the top right hose or using a valve available from various places.

[Ratrace427]

Yep. What about your cooling fans, are they both running? I have never opened my bleeder even when i had the radiator out. You would probably need it if the block was empty but that isnt the case. I dont guess it would hurt to open it up. You would have to let the car warm up before doing so and it would need to be running. You said this was a touchy matter with the members so maybe you should follow the shop manual exactly or not state how you do it.

[Bitsyncmaster]

Definitely try bleeding that thermostat housing bleeder and see if that helps. You may have to put some anti sieze on the brass threads if it has not been moved in a long time. You could do that quickly when the engine has cooled, back the bleeder out all the way and have a helper hold their finger over the hole while you put the anti sieze on the threads. Don't tighten the bleeder to much or you will damage it.

[David T]

Definitely try bleeding that thermostat housing bleeder and see if that helps. You may have to put some anti sieze on the brass threads if it has not been moved in a long time. You could do that quickly when the engine has cooled, back the bleeder out all the way and have a helper hold their finger over the hole while you put the anti sieze on the threads. Don't tighten the bleeder to much or you will damage it.

If you were low on coolant that means it is leaking out. You need to find and fix the leak or this will happen again and eventually you will pop the head gaskets. Yes, you do have to make sure all of the air is out of the system and you do that by loosening that nipple on the thermostat housing and also the small hose on the top, right tank on the radiator. Best done with a coolant system pressure tester and getting some pressure on the system. You need one anyway to fond the leak. Probably under the intake manifold and you won't see it anyway. Could be the weep hole on the water pump. To check that you get under the car and look up at the "nose" of the water pump and if you see moisture or staining the seal is gone.
David Teitelbaum

[NightFlyer]

Jack the rear end at least 3.5 feet in the air or higher. Top off the header/overflow bottle. Start the engine with the rear end still up in the air. Let it get hot so that the fans cycle a couple times. Turn off the car. Check the coolant level in the header/overflow bottle. If empty/low, top off and do it again. When you get to point that the level in the header/overflow bottle is about what it was when you last topped it off, you're done and you can lower the rear end. Doing this will purge all the air from the system out through the header/overflow bottle, as it was originally designed to do.

This is the procedure I follow whenever draining/flushing/refilling the cooling system, and I've never had to manually bleed the system or add a so-called self-bleeder to the cooling system. My car always runs nice and cool. I occasionally check and top off the level of coolant in the header/overflow bottle as needed (although rarely have I had to put any in until recently due to a leaking heater control (hot water) valve). As long as you keep the header/overflow bottle at a sufficient level so that the outflow line from the bottle and back into the system is always submerged, then air should stay out of the system. By occasionally checking the level, I've also never had to perform the procedure in-between drains/flushes/refills.

Or you can manually bleed. The choice is yours, but I personally prefer not to mess with the bleed valves - especially the one on the radiator (I'm still running my stock/OEM rad).

Best of luck!

21891

[refugeefromcalif]

Thanks All for the replies!
I'll attempt bleeding possible air this weekend.

Just an add on. Since I refilled the tank a few weeks ago, I haven't had Any loss of coolant.?.?
I wiil be checking, (Again), though for leaks.

George

[AugustneverEnds]

You might have a tiny leak from a hose when they are cold. Then when the car heats up and the rubber expands the leak is sealed. Sounds like your car is in very good shape so you shouldn't have much to worry about :)

[refugeefromcalif]

While attempting to bleed the cooling system today, I found that the radiator fans wouldn't come on.
I checked all the fuses, (Actually I replaced them all with new ones).
The relay, socket and pins looked fine.
Next I got underneath and checked the fans.

A pic of the driver side fan.

http://dmctalk.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=21936&d=1379196483

This has to be a stock fan.
I don't like the Oily spot around the stud and nut though.

I've now determined that I have a fan problem. (I did hear them running the middle of last week though with the same cooling issue)? :hmm:

Time for some more research here but, ANY help on what to look/check for would be appreciated.

George

[Tillsy]

I've now determined that I have a fan problem. (I did hear them running the middle of last week though with the same cooling issue)? :hmm:

Time for some more research here but, ANY help on what to look/check for would be appreciated.

Turn your key to run, don't need to actually start the car though, and pull the two plugs off your otterstat (if you are unsure what that is look at the coolant pipe from underneath left side of engine bay and you'll see a round device in the pipe with two plugs).

Jumper the two plugs together with a wire or even a paperclip and the fans should immediately come on - if they do your otterstat is bad, if they don't you have another problem - there are two relays for instance and it sounds like you have only checked one, but deal with that once you've narrowed the issue a little more.

[Jonathan]

...The relay, socket and pins looked fine.

...ANY help on what to look/check for would be appreciated.

It's not uncommon for the wiring that terminates on the underside of the relay sockets to not be in there well enough to make good contact. These spade connectors can get pushed out the bottom when you push in a new relay or even when removing the existing one and reinserting it. It can often look like nothing at all is wrong from the top too, which makes it harder to find.

See about whether any of the connections below the relay socket are not connected. If you can't get your fingers in there well enough with the socket tray as is, you can remove the relays and then you'll see one or more screws securing it to the side of the larger metal tray. Remove the screw(s) and then it will give you a bit more room to play with to check out below. Go easy so you don't pull anymore of them out of their sockets.

EDIT: Yea, definitely do the test Chris mentioned first. If the fans come on with this test it will help rule out a few things. If they don't come on, then it tells you a few other things.

Here's a photo when I did the same test a few years ago on my car. The jumper wire is the red one and you can see it connecting the leads (one is green it looks like). You can see the bottom side of the otterstat connection points too (with no wires on them).

21937

[DCUK Martin]

When testing the fans by jumpering the otterstat connector, if the fans don't work and you DO see 12v at their feeds, get underneath and tap the back of each motor with a hammer.

A long time ago I drove through some water in #1458 and a week later BOTH fans stopped working yet both had 12v going to them. The motors have a small drain hole but it's at the front of the casing meaning water can become trapped in the can at the commutator end and cause one of the brushes to get stuck. A little percussive engineering and they both fired up and are still working 10 years and a lot of miles later.

[refugeefromcalif]

Turn your key to run, don't need to actually start the car though, and pull the two plugs off your otterstat (if you are unsure what that is look at the coolant pipe from underneath left side of engine bay and you'll see a round device in the pipe with two plugs).

Jumper the two plugs together with a wire or even a paperclip and the fans should immediately come on - if they do your otterstat is bad, if they don't you have another problem - there are two relays for instance and it sounds like you have only checked one, but deal with that once you've narrowed the issue a little more.

I jumpered the two wires together, turned the key to ON and, Nothing. I Did cycle the mode switch from Off through all other modes.

Martin, I tried tapping on the fans before I tried the jumper but, I've yet to check for voltage.
Once I Cool off for a few minutes, I'll be back outside checking voltage at the fan plugs.

I've been looking all around the relay/fuse box area for problems. With all the wiring Upgrades that DMCF did on my car, I have lots of Extra wires to double check.

George

[refugeefromcalif]

You guys have been Very helpful so far. Thanks!

I've now checked both plugs that go to the fans for voltage.
Key in the On position, A/C at MAX, (Fans used to Always run there even when cold), and no voltage on my meter. I even tried it with the car running.
I'm either doing something wrong or, I'm losing it closer to the source.
Tillsy, you mention a Second relay. How do I check the associated relays for voltage?
I've done some searching here that also brings up Diodes to check. How do I check them?
I Do have the 40 amp. breaker in the proper place for the fans. I think I have a spare so, I'll try that in a few minutes.

Lost my Cool in Alabama.... :tongue:

George

[Bitsyncmaster]

The diodes turn on the fan relay (should be beside the fan fail blue socket). Then the fan relay drives the 12 volts to the fan fail socket. So I assume you have jumpers in the fan fail, you should see voltage on all three terminals of those jumpers when the fans should be running. You can also look for voltage on the fan circuit breaker, both sides should have 12 volts when the fans should be running.

[Tillsy]

The first two (leftmost) relays on the bottom row are fan fail and fan control.

The fan fail is common to, well, fail and is the first leftmost one. It may seem like you could get by without it, but the way it functions to detect (or more likely not detect) a failure makes it integral to the circuit - without it the fans don't work.

You can jumper it to bypass - I've no idea what pins within the relay socket itself you need, am on my way into work at the moment (Monday morning here), but electrically you need to connect the brown/grey to BOTH the black/green and black/orange wires. For purely testing purposes you could just jumper to one, jumper the otterstat, power up, and see if jus one fan fires up before making a three way jumper lead.

Bitsyncmaster sells a great solid state replacement for both the relays BTW.

[refugeefromcalif]

Found the problem with the radiator fans. Go figure, it's a breaker I replaced last year.

When I picked the car up at DMCF last year, I had a problem with the cabin fan shutting off, (Along with the speedo).
I called them up, mentioned it and Tom Huckleberry had a New angle drive and 2 circuit breakers, 30 and 40 amp, sent to me. My car still had the original breakers.
I replaced both breakers had hadn't had a problem until recently.

It seems that circuit breakers last less than a year. :screwy:
(Now I know why I've been having problems with the cabin fan again).
I replaced the 40 amp fan circuit breaker with a new one, (I still have cut the Wings off so it fits in the holder) and, (Wait for it.....), the radiator fans work Fine now.

Of course I had too take the Obligatory test drive around the block and test out the new breaker. (Well, it ended up being a 20+ mile trip aound town)...

Thanks again to ALL that gave me options too look for/at.
You guys Rock!

George

[refugeefromcalif]

Bitsyncmaster sells a great solid state replacement for both the relays BTW.

Thanks again for your help on this Chris.
I'll be getting in touch with Bity in a few days to see about replacing the rest of my relays with his upgraded ones.
I've been Very Happy with the RMP relay that I've purchased.

Dave M, Can you PM me a price list on the rest of your relays?

George

[refugeefromcalif]

The diodes turn on the fan relay (should be beside the fan fail blue socket). Then the fan relay drives the 12 volts to the fan fail socket. So I assume you have jumpers in the fan fail, you should see voltage on all three terminals of those jumpers when the fans should be running. You can also look for voltage on the fan circuit breaker, both sides should have 12 volts when the fans should be running.

I'm going to post a pic of my relay/fuse area.

I get Lost in there with all the Extras that DMCF added.

George

[NightFlyer]

Glad everything worked out well! :thumbup:

Odd that those breakers aren't lasting very long though. DMCFL didn't by chance wire anything extra into into those circuits, did they?

[refugeefromcalif]

Glad everything worked out well! :thumbup:

Odd that those breakers aren't lasting very long though. DMCFL didn't by chance wire anything extra into into those circuits, did they?

Funny you should mention that...
I called my contact at DMCF recently, He can't send/tell me any info about the Extra wires that they installed in my car.

http://dmctalk.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=21956&d=1379285797

http://dmctalk.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=21957&d=1379286024

http://dmctalk.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=21958&d=1379286263


I still have to finish tracing down many of the Add-on wires.
The Electrics I had them add was, Wings-A-Loft, Cruise Control and Alarm system.

George

[Bitsyncmaster]

By the way, if you have fused fan fail jumpers or my fan fail unit, you can and should remove the fan circuit breaker. I send a jumper with my fan fail unit to (optionally) do this

[David T]

The 40 A breaker should not be failing. You may have a bad fan motor drawing too much current, close to the 40 A. You are not supposed to draw more than 75% of the rated load continuously (that would be 30A). If you do and you are cycling the breaker continuously on and off that can cause the breaker to fail. Loose connections can cause heat and heat will also damage the breaker. Make sure you do not have the heater fan and the radiator fan breakers mixed up. The 40 A is for the radiator fans.