Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting i love overheating

so the bubbles go away quickly so i cant tell. i tried starting the car with only on plug on and everyone one of them allowed the reservior to bubble. when i get the car started the reservior fills up with fluid. i am also having a hard time getting the car started now.

also sometimes after shutting the car off i can hear something boiling in the engine bay...maybe coolant boiling around the engine???

Start the engine with all the wires on and then pull them off one at a time. What's the mileage?

did it it bubbles all the time now no matter which one. and i got like 120k

You are positive the water pump is good, right? I attempted to test mine by pulling the thermostat housing off and moving it and the upper hose out of the way. I also took the thermostat out. Then, I had someone start the car and watched the flow as it came out of the block (only do this with engine cold and get ready for a mess...keep your face away from there, too) On my car, it was just a little bit of flow at idle, like a garden hose near its lowest setting just kind of running out of there with no pressure. Had the helper rev it a little and the volume did increase, but I still wasnt impressed.

Only reason I ask about the waterpump is because my car's heat would blow cold sometimes and warm at other times, but never really hot (Was only warm if the engine was spun up a little bit). Also, since the coolant wasnt circulating in the engine very well, it was boiling in the block and going into the overflow tank in the form of steam. If the cap was off, the radiator cap would purge the pressure every once in a while.

When I got my water pump out it had all of its plastic impeller blades chewed right off of it!

yea i actually did that test the other day and its reeally not flowing hard untill i give it some gas and then it shot everywhere. i really dont feel like taking the waterpump off. about a month ago i had ford put one on so i think its under warrenty so i'll let them do it. should i ask for a metal blade is that how it goes? also when i go to start it the reservoir is empty and upon starting it it quickly fills back up

Hmm... when you say it shot everywhere it makes me think the pump might be OK like you said. Its a really subjective test, hard for a person to tell without seeing another identical car run the same test.

Lets just say that with my own car, when I hit the gas, the water did not shoot out, it just kept rolling out of the water neck, but did it with much more volume. I figured that in order to be able to push coolant through the engine and radiator and the hoses, it would have to have more pressure than what I was seeing, and I luckily ended up being right.

I think someone on here put a metal bladed one on their Zetec, it may have been a GMB or something like that. I don't think Ford makes a metal impellered pump for this engine. I ended up going with an Airtex or something like that. I was in a pinch for time, otherwise I probably would have gotten a metal one.

Good luck man

It's a Zetec... I know my Zetec 'said' it was overheating, it was a bad sending unit. not sure if this was fixed from 95 to the 98....

Does the fan come on when it overheats?

yup fans come on, just don't feel the flow through the lines