Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Bleeding air from cooling system?

My '96 Contour overheated. It has the Duretec (sp?) 2.5 and has 118K on it. It cooked the temp sensor, I replaced it. My gauge now reads and the low and high speed fans come on. She was still over heating. I replaced the thermostat. She still overheats. I've heard that the air in the system needs to be bled. How? I have looked high and low for some sort of valve but have been unable to find it. Can these 2.5's be bled? What about the water pump? Thanks for any help.

Duratec water pumps suck.
They have plastic impellars the disenegrate.
Yours might be going.
There are replacements with metal impellars.

Itâ??s your water pump, #1 common problem with the V6. The air will bleed if the T-stat is correctly installed and you fill it slow.

Pull your WP and inspect it.

jeff

when i changed my water pump due to the impeller failure on my 96 contour, V-6 engine.. i squeezed all the hoses on it
to try to get any air pockets out of it to move and fill with coolant... i took it for a drive and it went down some, so that means some more air was in it.. i then ran it for a while in the driveway(also make sure you have your heater on full blast as that might be a location of the air pocket)... let it run a good while and then with the recovery tank full drive it around some and see if it goes down some more... i have read on various newsgroups that if you remove one of the heater hoses that you will get the air out.. i never done this, but it might work... i never needed it......

Well, you folks were right, it was the water pump. Pulled it out and it and the impellers were split right down the middle. Replaced the pump and started her up and checked for leaks. The temp gauge went up almost to the red and I cracked the coolant cap and she cave me a big BURP!
The temp then came down to the normal temperature and I let it cool off and added more coolant. She's good to go now. Thanks again for your help!

glad to help, glad you got it running and have no problem now.. i remember when my contour heated up and i would never have thought that it was the water pump with a cracked impeller... all the ones i ever saw were plain old metal(why would any manufacturer use plastic).... then i got on this web page and found the problem here and someone sent me pictures of several old contour water pumps.. all with broken impellers.....