My baby is in pain....

[Arseassin]

Damn... I think my car is dying...

The other night, me and my friend had a little race on the local highway, (I blew his 97 auto galant away btw :P) and I kept her steady at about 115 for mabye 5 or 6 miles, when I slowed down to a stop, I noticed smoke billowing out from under my hood... So we went to the house and I decided to check the car this morning after I ran a few errands before work, and when I got back from running errands, smoke was yet again billowing out like a chimney from under my hood.. So I popped the hood, then carefully took the cap off of my radiator... Smoke poured out of it like a damn train.. so I left the hood up and the cap off for about an hour.. went back and poured about a gallon of water/antifreeze mix into it, and when I got about halfway thru the gallon, it started spewing boiling hot fluid out, so I let it cool down for another hour or so, then went out and filled the little reserve bottle, and the radiator up when it was cool.. So I figured when I was coming home from work that it wouldnt possibly have time to overheat...

Even though my engine was still cold (temp needle below the bottom line) when I got home, smoke was yet again pouring out from under the hood... Whats goin on guys.. Is my baby dying?

[Dutchboy]

check out your rad and heater hoses....
I just blew one on the way home! dont drive it that way or you will wreck your car!! and never add water to a super hot engine.. it will crack the head or block and then your car will be toast!
if theres a water leak you will see it making a mess all over the engine or under the hood..squeeze the rad hoses to see if theres one that is really soft and leaking.
i had a pin hole in a hose and it pissed out a gallon of water in a couple minutes.. so it wasnt hard to find... you would be buring water if it was the head or .. thered be water in the oil

[my86dx4dr]

Even though my engine was still cold (temp needle below the bottom line)

First off, sounds like your TCS (temp control sensor) is out.
second. it sounds like you might of blown a head gasket. but im not to sure about any of it

[Blkblurr]

Sounds like a bad thermostat that stays closed for a while longer than it should then opens with super heated coolant flowing into the rad. This will cause the radiator cap to release the over pressurized coolant and cause the smoke/ steam. Could also be a bad leak or air in your cooling system.

[Arseassin]

Nah, the thermostat works fine, it just takes a bit of driving to warm the car up

[Blkblurr]

You know for sure your engine was overheated. Otherwise the steam would not have been pouring out like that. Especially after putting water back in it while later. The fact that your guage said it was cold says the sender is not working and it's actually overheating. This could be your radiator is clogged badly or your thermostat is not opening all the way. You won't be able to tell if it's working properly if your sender is not working properly. Do you have a leak in your system? Lots of air in your system? This problem should be easy to solve.

[HondaBoy]

ok. i wanna get this strait. before you ever took the cap off the radiator, you had steam comming out of the engine? i had something like that happen to me. i had raced someone and then what i thought was smoke came out of the engine, but it was steam from the water spewing out of a busted hose. also, my temp gauge showed it was running cool, but it wasnt. it overheated and actually locked up. lucky for me it runs great, that was a few years back. anyway, the temp gauge showed it was cool because no water was getting to the temp sensor due to a busted hose. also, a thermostat thats broken closed can make the temp gauge show cold when its really overheating, my experience. anyway, i'd say look for a busted hose, maybe change the thermostat just to be safe since they arent that much to replace. also, after changing a hose or the thermostat, you'll want to bleed the cooling system by opening the bleeder screw. i've replaced every one of my hoses on the engine because i had hoses bust on me more than a few times.

[Blkblurr]

ok. i wanna get this strait. before you ever took the cap off the radiator, you had steam comming out of the engine? i had something like that happen to me. i had raced someone and then what i thought was smoke came out of the engine, but it was steam from the water spewing out of a busted hose. also, my temp gauge showed it was running cool, but it wasnt. it overheated and actually locked up. lucky for me it runs great, that was a few years back. anyway, the temp gauge showed it was cool because no water was getting to the temp sensor due to a busted hose. also, a thermostat thats broken closed can make the temp gauge show cold when its really overheating, my experience. anyway, i'd say look for a busted hose, maybe change the thermostat just to be safe since they arent that much to replace. also, after changing a hose or the thermostat, you'll want to bleed the cooling system by opening the bleeder screw. i've replaced every one of my hoses on the engine because i had hoses bust on me more than a few times.

That is exactly what happened to my 89 SEi. I then replaced all the hoses on the car and replaced the thermostat at the same time.

[POS carb]

sounds like you have a leak. park the car on concrete (cold) and turn it on, check for leaks. Leaks in front of the engine are the main hoses leaking or a hole in the radiator. On the driver's side it is the water pump or the manifold heater hose. on the back of the engine it can be the carb heater, the heater hoses, the thermostat housing

if the car idles normal then I doubt it's dying at all, ytou will kill it though if you run it w/out water

my $ is on the hose on the back of the carb