Rep Power: 0

hi guys,

so some bullshit things happened.

01 civic...auto... 180 000 km on it....was driving and the car started to get heated up...

checked coolant was low...topped it up and driving again and hood starts smoking...

i went and checked the smoke/coolant was coming from the coolant reservoir. smoke and pressure was coming out of it.

got it checked, and what do u know, they said its a hard problem to diagnose, start off cheapest.

got thermostat changed...

worked fine for about 100 km and den same ****...

den tested the fan and the sensor....jumped the fan so its on for about 2 days straight...car still heated up, so cant be the sensor or the fan... cause the fan used to turn on whenever the sensor told it to...

but when i jump the fan and turn it on 24 hours the car would still heat up...and same **** would happen again...

coolant leaking from the reservoir...AGAIN!!!!

den got a new radiator... worked fine for about 2 days...

den same **** happening now...

i drive for about 10 mins and the car will heat up...and i open the hood and all my coolant came out on the engine and battery from the cooling reservoir .

some people are saying its water pump, some are saying head gasket...

i topped the coolant up in the radiator first only and same **** happens...den when i top it up in radiator and reservoir ... the car is started...i can see bubbles coming from the reservoir...as if the pressure or the air is still escaping...but for how long ???


now what the hell is this? spent nearly 300 on repairs and about 80 bucks of coolant that kept leaking out... so i kept topping it up... i got the labour money off cause my friend helped me out workin on it...

now wtf is the probelm? its pissin me off cause i unno...didnt expect to get stuck in this sort of ****..

i heard people do compression tests, but what exactly is that? how much does it cost to get it done around? what will it tell me ?

does my problem seem like the headgasket or the water pump....cause i really dont know if the pump has been changed or not...same goes for the timing belt....no clue if its been changed or not...

right now i stopped driving and the car is just sittin in the parking lot cause if i drive, the coolant leaks from reservoir...

I have no clue how long this will last, and i need my car fixed asap too...so ill be posting similar things on different forums so please dont get annoyed...its freezing weather out and i need a car...lol

please help...thanks

 
Rep Power: 813

try a new honda radiator cap. if that doesnt work, its the headgasket. i dont know why they even would replace the radiator in a case like this. if the bubbles dont ever go away when looking in the radiator, thats a good clue combustion gases are getting in the coolant from a leaky gasket. there are tests that show if this is happening, i think auto store may even sell em. like strips you use to test the coolant and it says whether its contaminated.

 
Rep Power: 0

its gotta be the head gasket .you discribed the exact same symptoms that mine had,the bursting out the res. and coolant low.mine bursted like this for about a month before it finally overheated.i got the honda cap ,did the water pump, the radiator,the thermistat. new hoses and it still did it.i replaced the head gasket and the prob. was solved.the block test may also work some peeps charge like 20 ta 40 bucks to do it

 
Rep Power: 0

I posted this in another thread last August.............You may have a bad radiator cap (Doubt it). Replace with new. Make sure you get Honda cap. Bring your VIN # when you purchase the cap because the civic had two radiator manufacturers (at least the 2001 model did) and you want to match up the correct cap. Make sure your radiator fans are working. They are turned on when the temp sensor located in the T'stat housing detects a pre determined temp. The fans should come on while reving the engine just above idle speed/rpm and the engine is at normal operating temp. The fans will come on and go off after a few seconds. More than likely you have a blown head gasket and you are getting exhaust gases in your cooling system. The gases fill the radiator/coolant system and force the coolant out into the resevoir. Eventually the resevoir fills up and coolant burps out making a mess of the engine compartment. Eventually enough coolant will be lost and you will overheat. There is a test method for this issue. You can rent an exhaust/combustion gas tester from Autozone. It uses a glass tube and suction bulb to pull gases from the radiator. When the gases pass thru a blue liquid chemical it changes from blue to yellow if exhaust gases are present. If this is the problem the head must be removed, milled and new head gasket installed. The reason i know all of this is because i have just completed such a repair last weekend. I am currently monitoring the level of coolant in the resevoir and so far so good. I did have to replace one of the upper radiator hose clamps because it was leaking a little. Those spring ring type clamps suck. Also since you will already have the head removed i would go ahead and replace the waterpump and timing belt if it has not already been done.