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You are spending cash on additives and running your engine hot until it runs out of coolant and knocks. At what point would you consider taking your car into the shop?
Maybe do a basic clean of your engine bay. This plus a UV leak additive kit will make leaks obvious. Also, why not bring it up to temp parked so you can maybe see what's happening in the bay? Let it idle up to temperature, then bring it to 2-3K RPM until the fans come on, at which point the cooling system is engaged.
Probably because I don't want the shop to check something out and tell me that I need $650 worth of work and then I'm like "no, thanks" and this shop is WAY on the other side of town. They'll check it for free, and maybe I don't want to "use" them that way if I go in there knowing I won't be able to have any serious work done anyway. Ones which are close-by, they sometimes take a week to get around to be able to check anything out. I guess I don't want to bother them knowing that I probably won't be able to have them do anything anyway. However, if this K&W Block Sealer doesn't do anything, I just might go that route--I mean, as of right now, it cranks and it drives short distances, it's not GONE GONE. If it can be saved for not a huge amount of money, it might be worthwhile.
If it is just a leak, it bothers me that I can't see the freaking thing. I've had it idling at the home and I was looking all over the place and I couldn't find one, I couldn't see any water puddles underneath either. Yet, somehow, all of the water was emptying its way out of there. I was like "where, where, where is that leak? Why can't I see it?" I guess it's just burning it off in the engine, but would it really burn through the entire radiator's worth of coolant in barely 10-odd minutes, that fast? I put the K&W Block Sealer in there yesterday afternoon and it said to let it sit (with the radiator drain plug & cap removed) for 24 hours. This afternoon it will have been 24 hours, I'll go for a test run and see how it goes, expecting the worst but hoping against hope for the best.
it is losing water, as in the radiator will be bone-dry within 5-odd miles
Wait, the radiator or the overflow tank? If it's just the overflow tank, maybe you didn't have enough coolant in the system to begin with, or there was indeed air trapped in the system. If it's just the overflow, and since you are spending so much time on this already, I would basic clean the engine bay. Double check all hose connections for clamp tightness, position, and leaks. Check the radiator cap. And, finally, drain that sucker and refill exactly, precisely, word by word according to the FSM proceedure online. Step by step, that's the key. That will eliminate one variable.
It is losing water, I don't know where, but that is the issue. Somewhere, somehow, it is losing water, as in the radiator will be bone-dry within 5-odd miles. (Previously the water would boil-over into the overflow, now it just goes away altogether.) I can see NO splits in any hose or the radiator so I don't know if the water pump is maybe losing it or the radiator is but only once you get going and the pressure increases. (I have questioned if it's losing it via the overflow tank because I misplaced the O-ring that seals up the overflow tank's cap.) I intend to rent the pressure test thing from Autozone to try and see where the leak is coming from. Question--if you have a blown head gasket, would that itself cause it to leak right from the head?
I replaced the thermostat again. My idiot in-law said he thought the upper radiator hose, which had never given me any trouble, was "pinched" and he insisted on cutting some off. On the way home during a trial run, that hose kept coming off and causing it to lose all the water. Worse, the gauge was reading 3/8 hot so I thought nothing was wrong until I heard the engine knocking and saw what I saw. I fixed that issue, but it's not over at all.
Before it had occasion to be somewhat difficult to start if it had just ran hot, that has worsened. It sat for hours at home while I was at work, I got home and got it going within less than a minute, but then shut it off not even a minute later to redo the drill of adding water after bleeding the air line, and it was so freaking hard to get it started, even though it was cool. It took probably 20 minutes to get it going.
Once I got it going, I went down the road and just as before within 4-odd miles or so it was going towards hot, not full-blast H but very close, fluctuating from that to around 1/2, and going back and forth, after 8-9 miles or so it was very much at least 7/8 towards the hot. I got home right away and parked it, opened up the radiator tank right away (yes I know, risky)--dry as a bone, and the overflow tank was dry as well. (Again, prior to this, the water would go into the overflow and I could go a good 15 miles without it running hot, just pump the water out of the overflow when it cooled, and it only took maybe 1/4 of a gallon to refill the main tank.) Again the fans do come on, and shut off after parking and it's cooled off (around 2 minutes or so).
Even from day one the people at Autozone did observe a slight leak near the top of the radiator, I suppose maybe it's become worse but even with it full and running in the parking lot I can't see any coming out, in fact I can't see any coming out anywhere. I suppose it takes highway speeds to do so but once it does boy does it ever. I'm perplexed, really.
1... I don't know that I would call my brother in law an idiot when you seem to know as much about how to fix it as he does.
2. You still may have a head gasket problem. If it gets hard to start you "could" be on the verge of hydro-locking the engine from coolant getting into the cylinders.
3. You need to burp the system, not try to bleed it with a screw. That won't work. The system needs pressure and it can't see pressure until you start the engine and let it get hot. You could very well just have a large air pocket in your system. Careful with this, as I have seen the plastic impellars get eaten off a water pump from cavitation because the cooling system had air in it.
Is there any coolant coming from the exhaust? You could be burning it off.
At this point if you can't find the issue you need to take it to a mechanic. Owning a cheap car means knowing how to work on one. If you can't do the repairs yourself you're asking for trouble.
You need to burp the system, not try to bleed it with a screw. That won't work. The system needs pressure and it can't see pressure until you start the engine and let it get hot. You could very well just have a large air pocket in your system. Careful with this, as I have seen the plastic impellars get eaten off a water pump from cavitation because the cooling system had air in it.
I was told otherwise in another post. They mentioned the bleeder screw and said burping this particular car, or any such car with a bleeder screw, was not necessary. I hope that's true, because burping it seems like a real aggravating pain-in-the-butt thing to do. In my mind, if I've added coolant, that's enough, the car ought to be able to figure it out from there and not be so freaking stinking nit-picky. The laws of physics, if that's what's at play, really get on my nerves sometimes. (You should hear me grumble when I move furniture around about how furniture ought to weigh no more than 3 lbs and STILL be durable ANYWAY.)
But then, that's why I'm not a mechanic. Regardless, once it's had its 24 hours to "set" as the can said I should give it time to do, I'll go for a test run and if it starts acting up, I may well tow it to a shop and ask them what is going on.
Yes I'm the infamous Altima poster (1998). I thought I'd made things better but I guess I made them worse.
I replaced the thermostat last night, figuring that was a good thing to do. Although it was my first time doing so I followed the instructions exactly and it's not leaking, and no I didn't put it in backwards. I also learned how to bleed out the air (thus you don't need to burp the radiator). After this, it runs hot MORE often.
Before I could go 15-20 miles if I'd just filled up the tank, now it starts acting up within 6 miles or so. The temperature gauge fluctuated before and that was why I figured I needed a thermostat, but it only did so occasionally and now it does it much more quickly, it will be near 3/4 hot but then come back down and be normal again, then a little later it will do it again. Eventually after 10 miles or so it's full blast hot, and that's something it never did before (again many times I could go 15 miles and it would stay on the half mark the entire time).
What else could it be? I'm not thinking water pump because last weekend my belts came off and during that period it was even worse, far worse, and now I have new belts throughout. For the record before my heater sometimes was hot sometimes it wasn't, now it's always cold. Also my upper radiator hose almost never gets warm as of late, and instead of SOME of the water boiling over into the radiator now almost all of it does. Again since changing the thermostat it does all of this worse, but gee whiz that's a simple job.
Blown head gasket? For the record I'm leaning towards selling this but I figured I'd get feedback.
Update (edit), I just did a test run, as before you'll make it 5-6 miles then all Cain breaks loose. I noticed at this point that in fact there is no water boiled over into the reservoir, in fact the reservoir is empty. Now I lost the very small "Oring" you have on the cap and its replacement isn't the same one, I can't imagine it would make THAT much difference. This points to a leak, but I haven't seen one anywhere. Radiator maybe? I know how silly this must sound, if it's a matter of I spend $200 getting a new radiator or water pump and all is well then fine, but I'd hate to do that and it STILL run hot. I'm just trying to decide when to say enough is enough.
Dude, put a couple of bullets in the grill and be done with it.
Probably because I don't want the shop to check something out and tell me that I need $650 worth of work and then I'm like "no, thanks" and this shop is WAY on the other side of town. They'll check it for free, and maybe I don't want to "use" them that way if I go in there knowing I won't be able to have any serious work done anyway. Ones which are close-by, they sometimes take a week to get around to be able to check anything out. I guess I don't want to bother them knowing that I probably won't be able to have them do anything anyway. However, if this K&W Block Sealer doesn't do anything, I just might go that route--I mean, as of right now, it cranks and it drives short distances, it's not GONE GONE. If it can be saved for not a huge amount of money, it might be worthwhile.
If it is just a leak, it bothers me that I can't see the freaking thing. I've had it idling at the home and I was looking all over the place and I couldn't find one, I couldn't see any water puddles underneath either. Yet, somehow, all of the water was emptying its way out of there. I was like "where, where, where is that leak? Why can't I see it?" I guess it's just burning it off in the engine, but would it really burn through the entire radiator's worth of coolant in barely 10-odd minutes, that fast? I put the K&W Block Sealer in there yesterday afternoon and it said to let it sit (with the radiator drain plug & cap removed) for 24 hours. This afternoon it will have been 24 hours, I'll go for a test run and see how it goes, expecting the worst but hoping against hope for the best.
If you have a bad head-gasket, or similar.......that defect will expand as the engine gets hotter. So yeah, a bad head-gasket may not be that big of a deal when your engine is cool........but when the engine heats-up, the defect expands, and your engine will be burning a LOT of coolant.
OP, from what you have posted, I am fairly sure you do have a head gasket leak (or cracked head). If you are not able to fix this yourself beyond the Block Seal (which I have heard is good for that kind of product) you will have to have a shop replace the head gasket, do the other work that makes sense at that point like a timing belt if you have one, water pump, etc.
If you keep running it out of water and overheating it, you will damage the engine beyond economic repair. Right now you are probably only $1000 or less from a fixed car at a good shop, but keep screwing around and you will be looking at a boneyard replacement engine, or Jasper, or similar, and that's going to be a good bit more money.
I have dealt with this before.......many times a cracked head/gasket/block is going to suck coolant into the cylinders, and the engine is going to run hot.
I have the exact situation in my current vehicle.......it loses coolant and there is NO leaks.
If I keep my engine at the very lower-end of the temperature-gauge, it runs pretty good and burns little coolant. How did I do this...............I just pulled the thermostat out of the vehicle, simple solution.
The OP, for now, needs to forget about all this "is there air in the system" "did you burp the system". You need to determine, FOR SURE, if you are leaking coolant, or not. If you can say for sure that there is no coolant leaking, but your radiator is running dry.......that REALLY sounds like a head/block/head-gasket that is bad, and your engine is burning the disappearing coolant.
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