Ka24de Overheating

[Scratchoz]

I'll try to keep it brief. Car overheated a couple days ago. I immediately stopped it to prevent any damage done. Noticed my coolant hose on the TB was burst(from the pressure in the system) the bottom radiator hose was cool and my fans never kicked on so my thermostat never opened.

I replaced that hose with a normal coolant hose I got from the parts store for time being, and replaced the thermostat. Car will idle perfectly fine. Drive it today and it starts to overheat a while down the road. Any ideas?

[Scratchoz]

Well I replaced the water pump as well. I'm pretty much at a loss now. It will idle at a perfect temperature but once I start driving, about a mile down the road it begins to climb. I noticed when I hit a corner the temperature dipped down, only thing I can think is air in the system but I bled the hell out of it. Thermostat just does not want to open.

[Marco,s14..]

Start your car, remove radiator cap, if it bubbles its your head gasket.

[bmaddock]

The KA is notorious for trapping air bubbles. Here is a bleeding procedure I have in my KA-T tutorial thread.
1. Fill cooling system with whatever you want mix-wise with the bleeder closed. Fill it until it doesn't take any more.
2. Open the bleeder screw, squeeze the upper radiator hose frequently, fill it until no more air (only liquid) comes out.
3. Leave the radiator cap off and bleeder off if you don't get pure liquid out of it.
4. (Optional) Jack the front of the car up with floor jack or park on steep hill, front of the car facing uphill.
5. Turn the car on, put temp slider to full heat, turn blower on. Let car run and close bleeder once pure liquid comes out. Leave radiator cap off, let car warm up, add coolant as needed when it goes down (thermostat opens).
6. Once you have the thermostat open and heat coming out the vents, top off the radiator. If you want to double check the bleeder for pure liquid open it back up and see. Close bleeder, put rad cap on, and fill the coolant reservoir up to the line. Done :)

[jza80king]

Start your car, remove radiator cap, if it bubbles its your head gasket.

Bubbles coming up doesn't necessarily mean a BHG if anything it most likely means air is trapped in the system which the KA is well known for. White smoke also sweet smelling exhaust smoke would indicate burning coolant thus a BHG but there are other variables. If you actually want to diagnose a BHG you would want to do a cylinder leak down test.

OP as Bmaddock indicated, you most likely have a bubble in the system. I just completed a rebuild on a KA24DE from an overheating/Thermostat failure issue much like you described. What I would do is follow the steps for bleeding the radiator system. I would strongly suggest you raise the front of the car on jack stands which will help getting any pockets of air out of the system. Once it is raised start the car and turn the heater on full blast. Open the radiator cap and put a funnel in the opening. Depending on the coolant level, fill the funnel about half way with coolant and allow the car to get normal operating temp. I accelerated the car to about 3-4k while bleeding the system as I feel that helps in opening the thermostat quicker and allows for the air pockets to escape easier. Good luck man.

[Scratchoz]

Thanks everyone for the replies. I was bleeding it before but I guess wasn't thorough enough. I ran without a thermostat for a day and it was fine. I got a new OEM one from the Stealership and was bleeding and when it got up to temperature it started to climb some more and I noticed smoke coming from under my intake so I killed the car and there was a coolant leak. So apparently one of my hoses was compromised and now it's busted. Not sure which one I checked both of the heater hoses going to the firewall and they're fine...

[Marco,s14..]

Go to auto parts and buy fluorescent dye, throw some in rad. And check where its coming from.