Runs Hot - Out of Ideas

Here's to hoping it's a head or head gasket

It was a head gasket! Number 2 cylinder spit the puppy up, the fire ring cracked (failed) forming a passageway to the water jacket.

Took the heads over to Charlie's Cyclinder Heads in town, they checked them for any cracks then milled both a couple thousands to clean up the mating surface. Now waiting for Summit to get the Mopar head gaskets back in stock (Aug 26th) then the whole mess can go back together.

First everything comes out



The ugly shows up

Not suppose to be that wet:



Back from the cylinder head shop, you can spot the #2 chamber, valves are a different color.


Up next - building a fan shroud for the FSR Tug radiator

Got bored today, got little do until the head gaskets can ship, decided to tinker a little putting together a fan shroud that will fit the FSR Tug radiator and the Derale 17" fan. Already wasted money on buying FSR plastic shroud made for the radiator, will not fit in the vans cramped quarters.

This one will be made out of aluminium, current model is art board.



Yes that piece of cardboard is a tool, marking reminds me not to cut it up for something else, it fits the radiator core, there is another on the front side, keeps the core & fins from getting damaged.

Prior to removing and tearing the engine down to inspect the heads I spotted an ad on craigslist for a set of new Hughes Engines 4676 Max Ram with the performance 3 angle valve job, some blending and 1110 Springs, these have the 2.02 intake valves. Yes I bought them, yes they were expensive, no they will not be going on the van engine, these heads will require a little better than stock cam. But I do have a V8 Dakota that would really appreciate a little fire under the hood.

Now that's good news, quick and easy fix. Nice that you got another set of heads too, I'm sure the Dakota will appreciate them

Glad you got it figured out, sorry it is a ton of work! that's how it goes sometimes. Should be sweet when done though, nice job so far.

Resurrected this post, finally got the engine back together, winter time is not my favorite season for quality shop time.

Failure, still running hot, new head gaskets in, raised the radiator now within 1" of center with fan, that is closer than original, using a 17" fan. Temps climb to 220 which is when I shut it down, so looking for any ideas.

What the van has now, FSR tug radiator, new Mopar LA water pump, 180 thermostat, 50/50 anti freeze mix, catch can, new cap, new hoses, I have had the shroud on and off, belly pan on and off, no change still runs hot.

Suggestions?

look in to the out side diameter of the water pump pulley you may have a smaller /6 water pump pulley
being small would make the water pass thru the rad faster not letting it cool down correctly
so we may need to find a larger pulley and a new fan belt,
a lot of the early owners have moved to the scoop underneath and the tunnel thru the cab and into the dog house, I read everything today again before i responded . i think i read you changed the timing chain cover ?? I may be wrong BUT when i started looking for my timming marks on the cover they are on a different location than the 318 /la / b-van engine was on .. if this is true then could this have your timing off. look in to these before you spend a bunch of money first

I converted the magnum front cover/pump to a LA style, used a Hughes snout conversion on the magnum cam. The water pump is Mopar P5249558 6 blade "A" style, pump and crank pulleys are a new set for the V8 w/o power steering from Bouchillion Performance, the damper is new from Pro Products, I verified the crank/cam timing and alignment of timing marks, current setting is 5* BTDC with all in at 34*, engine fires and shuts off perfectly. Done my best to avoid miss-matching used parts, can not say I spared no expense but right now there is over $16K out of pocket on this van that is useless for the road.

Pondered removing the FSR radiator and getting a Champion model that some on this site have used, then again this FSR radiator has more capacity and heat dissipating ability than the stock radiator, also using a larger fan which draws more air.

Yea I am tired of tossing money into that tin box, almost like having a boat or a swimming pool.

Thought that the head gasket was it for sure.

This probably is not enough to get your temp down where you want it to be since there must be some serious issue going on that you have not hit yet. I can't think of anything that you have not already covered.

On past vehicles that I have owned I have been able to drop the temperatures 10 - 20 degrees by running straight water with a rust inhibitor (Prestone) and a product like water wetter, Royal Purple ICE, 40 below, or something similar. I also run the transmission fluid through a separate cooler and not through the radiator. I live in a part of California where I don't have to worry about freezing temps cracking the block with out antifreeze so I'm not sure if this would even be a consideration for you during the winter.

Best of luck, it is a tough one.

Considered trying the no thermostat just to find out what happens but got to have anti-freeze, this morning it is 24*. Heard good and bad, some say the engine will never get to operating temps, others it will run too hot cause the fluid flows through the radiator to fast to cool.

Are you sure the hoses are not collapsing at speed? And have tried a different gauge? Does it overflow or just showing high temp? I assume your cam specs are not crazy, a street type cam? With the lid propped open, what does it do to the temps while at higher speeds? With all you've done, about all you can, I'd lean towards the gauge, hose collapse, or heat not evacuating.

This is a stock 5.9 magnum with less than 30K miles, so cam is stock. The last run was done in the driveway, no side covers on or lid. Have not run down the road this time since it overheats quicker when cruising. The upper & lower hoses are corrugated they do have internal springs, I have not seen any collapsing, usually corrugated hose are really hard to collapse. Now as for the gauge, I have tried two senders with both giving the same readings, will go buy another gauge, maybe a mechanical one for testing, none come with a long enough capillary tube to snake around to the vans dash but it will be enough to verify the gauge I have now.

I will add that as the temp gauge climbs to shut off zone the engine/radiator feel hot, or better yet I feel the radiated heat, something you pick up after decades of driving and building air cooled engines. Yea I know I am not calibrated.

Yes definitely run a thermostat, it will run too hot without one, the coolant needs to stay in the radiator for a while to cool down before it is returned to the block. If you run without one I have seen some companies like Morroso that sell restrictor plate sets that take the place of the thermostat. They have various size holes in the plates to slow the coolant flow down, used mostly for drag racing.

That reminded me of something, I buy high performance aftermarket thermostats and they usually have a small hole drilled in the body. I can't remember exactly what the hole does, something about releasing steam bubbles from the coolant or something. I have drilled small holes in the thermostat housing if they did not come with one. I have always had small block Chevys but probably same principle on the Dodge. I remember getting instructions with a thermostat on where to drill and the size hole. You can probably find more info on the size hole and location to drill on the internet.

Just one more thought, from what I have read your cooling system components sound like they are working properly. To me it sounds like you are still getting exhaust gasses into the coolant or something like that.

I have seen a couple of things that allow you to see your coolant while the engine is running. One you cut a section out of your upper radiator hose and replace it with a glass "Pyrex" tube, The other is a thermostat housing that is raised up a couple of inches that use the same glass tubing. These may be a useful tool to help you diagnose the problem?

If you are not sure what I am talking about let me know and I will try to find links to these products.

Did you remove any core plugs from the block prior to installing ? With that low mileage I doubt there would be any corrosion or crud in the block. What about head gaskets, are earlier "LA" gaskets the same as the magnum gaskets? All passages from block to heads line up with gaskets etc? Baffling why it runs so hot. Just wondering if water is actually circulating through block and heads completely, or only through pump housing/bypass or?

Yes when draining the engine to pull the heads I pulled the two lower block drains, no rust, they unscrewed real easy. I used Fel-Pro head gaskets for the magnum engine, verified hole openings. Could of used LA type, both engines have the same holes just a little difference in design.

Picking up a VDO mechanical water temp gauge later this afternoon, hopefully it will be warm enough tomorrow to run another test. Will also do another combustion chamber leak test plus hook the digital air fuel tester in to sniff the exhaust.

https://wiki.ezvid.com/best-infrared-thermometers?id=adw&gclid=CL_noa_YrdICFdiFswodmkAA5w


find out what is getting hot and where!!!!!

These will allow you to see when or if the coolant is flowing.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/152447549275?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Performance-Pyrex-See-Thru-Radiator-Hose-Glass-1-1-4-GM-Ford-MOPAR-Imports/152448946261?_trksid=p2060778.c100290.m3507&_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D40954%26meid%3D6825b7f039454e929fcdd76bb7320e2e%26pid%3D100290%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D4%26sd%3D152447549275

http://www.classicindustries.com/product/mopar/parts/vp2004.html

A rather entertaining day of testing, yes I had several wishes, like I wish I did not have so much money and time in this van for it would then be a easy choice to pay a wrecking yard to crush it, have the scrap shipped to China so it one day will return as a electric wok that will overheat.

Okay that was a little sour, been a long day.

Hooked up a mechanical VDO water temp gauge in in the intake so reading will be the same as the electric temp gauge currently in use. Hooked up a vacuum gauge to read manifold vacuum to verify there are no huge leaks causing a lean condition. Hooked up a Innovate wide band AFM to verify the carb was properly adjusted. Left radiator cap off so a combustion leak tester could be used to verify the heads are not leaking.

Vac gauge steady at 18, no leaks there.


Wide band 13.4:1 +/- which is a pretty good idle. I would like one stage richer idle jets allowing the number of turns out on the screws could be reduced.


Combustion sniffer stayed blue during two tests so the odds are the head gasket is not leaking.


Both gauges stayed equal, that eliminated the possible bad gauge, 195 is 195, actually they stayed the same from cold till shut off at 210.




With the cap off I could see circulation, had to put the cap on to keep coolant from puking out, but there was movement. The only difference was I drained a gallon of coolant to get the level low enough to install the mechanical sender in the intake manifold, did not put the coolant back in, filled the radiator with distilled water, thinned the coolant a little. A test strip of the coolant showed the mix to be 60/40. doubt that was causing the over heating.

It did take longer for the van to reach the 210 mark, after initial testing I brought the idle up to 1K instead of 700, AF ratio still remained in the 13:1 region which may be the reason the temp climb was slower.

Still no difinitive conclusion as to over heating.

Wow... You have covered everything that I can think of...I'm out of ideas.

Me too. You have a better than good radiator and verified good cooling fan, hoses, water pump, thermostat, no leaks from head gaskets, circulation, no crud in block, good gauge and sending unit, and yet the temps climb! Timing is set, fuel/air ratio good........Short of some sort of blockage in the passages in the block, or timing cover....Makes no sense. Do you still have hair on head?? Mine would be gone! . I'd be removing the water pump and verifying flow through the block and heads, forcing water thru that timing cover one side then "back flushing" thru the other. There's got to be some sort of blockage withing those three components: that cover, block, and heads. What else is there??

That new mixture of coolant/water 60/40 might have made an essential change, as "coolant only" is a very bad option. Coolant only does not have the necessary properties to do proper cooling.

You said less than 30k.  Is that out of the factory or on a rebuild? Just curious if it'd been bored?

Original, came out of a very minty Ram pickup that the man called his going to church truck until it got broadsided. Here is a picture of the engine when I got it to my shop, it has not been steam cleaned.