88 Honda Accord LX; manual; waterpump? Fans? Overheating...

Hello! ;]
Just came back from Florida vacation about 4 days ago, flew, left my car here in Illinois, sister drove it--and i've driven it a couple times since i've been back and started experiencing problems with it just yesterday.

It's got about 170,000 miles on it. When it's cold it takes about 5 seconds to actually start--When I start out driving it idles high (which is common from what I understand). Yesterday, I started it, and it started with the usual 5 second delay. When I got to my destination I noticed steam coming out from the hood, late, I didn't check under the hood--14 hours later I got back in it and started it up and it took a little longer than 5 seconds to start, then it sounded as if the belts were squealing, and it was making a rough loud rumble noise, so I turned it off and started it back up a minute later and it started up as usual. On the drive home I noticed the tempterature gage showed that it was getting hot, but I was only a couple minutes from home so I made the drive--When I got home, same steam coming out from under the hood, and it was making like a boiling/hissing sound. I pulled the car in the garage and took a look at it, the steam was coming from the radiator, and it looks as though there's a leak somewhere because I could see drops of water around, although I haven't seen anything that's actually leaked out when I look UNDER the car. I also noticed the fans weren't turning on. Any ideas? I can't take it have it looked at for another 2 days on account of work, thought i'd get some insight on here to see if I could get a brief idea of what the problem MIGHT be.

Thank you for your time!
-Eryn

First thing I would look at is your thermostat. It may be stuck closed. You may also have a leak and low on coolant. You could also have a bad radiator cap.

yea what he said
fans won't make a difference when the car is moving, and when the water pump goes usally the bearing freeze and it locks up.

Well now I think I figured out the problem, and it's even worse ... =\


Just got the car not too long ago, a couple weeks before I went on vacation, apparently there was only water in the radiator, and it froze, therefore nothing was able to cool the car down--Pretty sure I cracked the head gasket...A lot of white smoke coming out of the tail pipe, and it's idling at 3,000 when I first start it up. A TINY oil leak, only found a small drop of oil on the ground. =\ Going to the shop I suppose. :uh:

hold up on that thought, if the head gasket is blown which white smoke is the main clue check the radiator for oil in it (milky looking) Then check the compression to see if your pistons/rings are good still. The head gasket you can replace yourself, and save a lot of money, only take you 5hrs and 50 for the gasket, oh and get new rad fluid. ;)