Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Is your Zetec running hot??? Read this

OK, I finnally figured out the problem. For all of your with high temp problems, pay attention. OK, the car was running right into the red on the temp guage, it was starting cold and, as the engine warmed up, the guage would go up smoothly and go into the red. The gauge did not peg, but would stay in the middle of the red and go up a little(say at idle or hard driving) and sometimes drop slightly. So first thing i did was put in a new thermostat, I was hoping it was that simple. It wasn't. Then I realized the fans were not coming on, and they should, the engine was very hot, needle in the red. I upluged the top temp sensor, the one for the fans, and they turned on. I figured that temp sensor must be bad. I bought a new one, the fans still did not turn on, So I unplugged it so the fans would turn on. The temp dropped slowly, but still not out of the red. I decided, maybe if I run a cooler thermostat. I went out and bought a 180 deg. thermostat. It ran a little cooler, now at the beginning of the red, but still in the red. Well I had been hoping it wasn't the water pump the whole time so far, but now it seemed like all signs were pointing to the water pump. It seems like the plastic impellers must have broken off and the water wasn't being circulated enough to keep the engine cool. So Saturday morning I pulled out the water pump. I knew I was screwed when the water pump impellers were intact. I put a new waterpump in anyway, since I already had the old one out. I was talking to my mechanic freind who seemed to think my radiator was clogged. I actually pulled the radiator thinking I was going to change it for a new one. But using the hose, it looked to me like the radiator was flowing just fine. Well we decided at this point to check the accuracy of the guage. We put everything back together and completely flushed the system and put in new antifreeze, no change in the water temp reading. My freind owns a shop so I borrowed his Autodiagnostics OBD-II scanner and this cool little laser temp guage thing(it tells you the temp of whatever you aim it at) Both the Scanner and temp guage kept a reading of around 180 degrees. Damn. I held my foot on the brake and reved the engine to get the car to run hotter, at about 205-210 on the scanner, the temp guage in the car was pegged at this point the cooling fans came on. So it was the f'in guage, or the sending unit. I will be changing the sending unit first one night this week and the guage if that does not fix it. Thanks for reading this post, I just needed to vent, i worked all weekend on this car for nothing

Well Mistake, you've gotten to know more about our Zetec. Now you can help me and others, when they do their waterpump.

98mitake, you did a good thing!! You are now graduated by having contributed to the knowledge base that is CEG. You have become immortal, for all future Ztec temp problems will be pointed to this thread & YOUR contribution will live on.

Nice going!! and thanks on behalf of all of CEG!! <bows>

Your post described perfectly the consequences of swapping parts to try to fix a problem without proper testing. Hopefully your message will be heeded by someone down the road.

That quick test with the laser pointer IR thermometer would have saved you a weekend of work and a bunch of money. You can buy one at Sears for only $50.

Good luck..

Steve

I dont care, my contour runs like [censored] when the engine gets above the OM mark. So I made a modification!
www.geocities.com/contourkev/ectp1.html

Damn, seeing my old intake brings a tear to my eye for how hard I worked on that old car... dammit.. Im going to bed.

Its a beautiful intake, I love that thing...
im neglecting cleaning it tho

My contour overheated on my roadtrip last week during springbreak. However I knew exactly what the problem was--the blown fuse for the fans. I temporarily stole the fuse from the ABS to make it home. I knew it was the fuse right away since I had blown it a few weeks prior after I clogged my fans with mud after doing some offroading. I had to replace the entire fan assembly cause after the mud froze, it cracked the housing to pieces and the fan motor was all clogged up. But you even said yourself that your fans weren't coming on. I know it wasn't the problem with yours, but jesus, all that trouble when that's what it could've been.