Shiva

My Honda Civic is having Mysterious overheating problem and unable to identify by any mechanic. Can someone help me.

Old History:
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1. Having Civic 2000 LX from last 6 years and worked good for me with no major complaints.
2. Fixed a new radiator as old radiator had a crack last year during September 2011. Everything good after that

Afterwards:
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1. My Car got overheated after a long drive. Called AAA and he saw that CAR is completely out of coolant / water. He filled with full water and i was fine.
2. I started to notice few drops of water or coolant every day morning in front of CAR especially towards passenger side
3. After 2 months again Car got overheated, this time Mechanic unable to find leak in his pressure test. But observed that Reservoir is getting filled up with coolant.

Current State:
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1. Now iam unable to find any leak. But after 2 hours of drive, my CAR overheats and Coolant will flow back to reservoir. But most of the time, it will never return back to radiator. But sometime i have seen that some amount of water flow back to radiator or even all
2. Every morning iam filling up my radiator with coolant in reservoir and this is becoming my daily habit
3. I also measured that Amount of coolant flowing into reservoir is what the amount i poured, so this means there is no loss of water!!!


New Discovery:
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1. Strangely from last few days i noticed that CAR overheats when i came back to home in Evening and i park the CAR. I was surprised to see why it happens in the same place always. Then i noticed that it happens only when i take reverse gear!!
2. Yesterday i made a test. When i parked my CAR after 1 hour journey, i took a reverse and engine started to gradually heated up. Now i started to drive forward for at least a mile or two. Interestingly CAR temperature came to normal (To be precise, little more than 50% mark) but never increased during my 5-10 minutes of drive. Again i came back to my parking lot and started to take reverse and again i saw Overheating

Need Help:
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1. I Would like to understand what might be the problem here. Need help
2. Can it be a Head gasket issue? if so, instead of spending $$$ for my old car, can i get it fixed with some good Sealant. Can you recommend me one?

kicker2817

sup shiva , i got badnews for u , its your headgasket , i had same problem with my car .it would overfill the resorvoir and leak from top of it leaving radiator with no coolant. i replaced headgasket and problem was solve.
another way u can tell is when you start your car in the morning if starts with slight misfire for 5 sec and then everything goes back to normal.

antrmo

if it was a head gasket,is it heating up in reverse cause no wind blowing threw rad?.does it misfire in the morn?

98_CivicDX

Well you could try a thermostat first, it's cheaper than a head gasket. If you go to do a head gasket, I would also do a timing belt and water pump job. If you get this done at a shop, it will add up to money nobody wants to spend.

Make sure your electric fans are working. They should come on to maintain a certain temperature when the car is not in motion. You're right to say when the car moves forward, air flows through the radiator, and the antifreeze is cooled. The fan does the same thing: it pulls air through the radiator to cool the fluid inside, which will then return to the engine and absorb more heat.

When your car is overheating, try turning on the heater. This may save it from going volatile and enable you to get to a destination without causing much damage.

Stop leak? It probably won't work and create one hell of a mess when the actual problem is discovered. I would stay away from the stuff personally. From tires to cooling systems to engine oil, I'd rather fix the problem than keep adding stop leak.