02' WS6 Temp too high for my comfort

[Capt Pie]

Did you ever take the air filter housing off and clean out the area in between the radiator and a/c condenser? Just curious. Good to hear everything is back to normal.

No I didn't! I was waiting for the weekend, but by the time the weekend came it stopped doing it. Soooo I kept an eye on it for a week, and it.. just stopped.

[RONS98TA]

I guess you really dont have to take all that off then, just as a preventative maintenance thing, I would. It really isn't that hard to pull that off and clean it up in there. Prob only take an hr tops if you take your time and go slow. It def wont hurt to do this. If I were you, I would just wait for the temps to get up in the 70's, then have at it. Here in good ol' Maryland, it's 11' today!!! YUK.

[JustinEntropyRad]

1) The heater core is definitely bad. That is probably the source of the coolant smell in the engine bay as well.

2) Are these temp readings with a scan tool or using the gauge on the dash? Hard to tell from his thread.

3) A 17 year old could probably use a new radiator too. Even if the radiator isn't leaking, radiators wear out just like bearings and lose their ability to transfer heat.

4) A quick test would be to jumper to ground the PCM pins for both the low and high speed and see how the temps behave with the fans on high all the time.

[Capt Pie]

Are the radiator fins full of junk? Bugs, grass, dirt, rocks, etc?

Bringing back from the dead - I had my Master Slave go out and took it to a shop. Told him about the heating issue. He pulled off the intake and got all crazy with air, and cleaned the living crap out of the radiator. Every bit of it. He showed me a dust pan FULL of random stuff that was caked in there. I then drove the car in stop and go traffic in 110 degree weather and the temp was perfect. Visually it didn't look bad, but once he got in there with the compressed air everything came spilling out.

[Naaman]

It's nice to get to the bottom of things. For me, it's almost like getting a new car.

[Capt Pie]

It's nice to get to the bottom of things. For me, it's almost like getting a new car.

Exactly!! The stress that is no longer there is fantastic. The temp wasn't pegged, but just high enough to make me always a little on edge.

[RONS98TA]

Great to hear it was a simple and fairly cheap fix. Kinda what i was saying about cleaning the radiator with a garden hose and or an air hose.

[Capt Pie]

Dear future me,

Yes, this message is for you when you end up googling these issues in another 9 years, get excited, then realize it's your own post. Also, since you forgot you did a bunch of stuff 9 years prior, we're just going to list it out here.

Your alternator went out. When you took it off, you went on a spree and replaced a bunch of stuff, including all the stuff you did 9 years ago because you don't drive your car enough, so it just sat. You also put the upper radiator hose on the old water pump OVER the little ridge butting it up against the pump. This was not correct, and caused some nasty stuff to bake under that area. When you took the old thermostat off the old pump, you noticed half of the inner gasket was missing, which is probably why the car would start dumping coolant when it got up to operating temp. You did not find the other half.

Currently there are 43,000 miles on the car. Here is everything you replaced the last couple of weeks along with the things there were bad.

- Alternator
- Water pump - This time you went with the later model pump with the different thermostat and housing
- Thermostat and Thermostat housing
- New WP and T-stat bolts - 12 point - Remember this so you don't go jacking them up when you read this in 2032
- All new hoses - Right now you did rubber, but will get the silicone ones again when they are in stock. You did not do the 2 heater core hoses because it looks rather difficult without removing the engine
- Radiator cap
- coolant reservoir that the battery sits on
- The little metal tube and crimped hose for the coolant reservoir - You special ordered it since it's not made anymore
- Cleaned the block with Roloc Bristle Disc Grade - 120, Size - 2.
- Flushed the heck out of the system

You bought most of this stuff from Rock Auto. Yes, you do have a brand new water pump sitting in a box in the garage, because Advanced Auto Parts did a lifetime warranty swap on the one you bought in 2014. You did other things, too:

- Idler pulley
- Tensioner pulley assembly - You have any extra tensioner pulley brand new as well because you ordered the wrong thing and didn't check until after the return period
- You replaced the belt. Again. Seriously, stop replacing the belt so much. And you don't need to save the old one "just incase"
- Starter - You wired it up kind of weird, so if you have starting issues later, go check that.
- Little belt and the little tensioner assembly

You also followed the advice from 9 years ago and blew out the radiator fins and compressor fins. Whey there was so much hair in it is still a mystery. The cooling is fine now, no more faint smell. Good job.

As of now, the car is still having that weird starting issue when it's cold outside, and still will shutter and die after stopping the car for a few minutes. The dash lights take a long time to light up after putting the key in. These are the things you did to try to fix it already.

- Starter relay
- Ignition relay
- Tried cleaning the keys
- Tried both keys to see if there was a difference. There wasn't
- starter and starter solenoid
- Cleaned the MAF - not replaced
- IAT sensor that plugs into the air intake

Oh yeah, you also saw there was engine oil slowly accumulating at the bottom bolt of the AC compressor bracket that threads into the block. As of today, you were unable to find where it was coming from above it even though it looked like it was coming out of the block where the bolt threads in. Staring at it while under the car for an hour did not accomplish anything. Try something different.

You recently realized you have the Brian Greene Ram Air kit installed, and are still trying to figure out how to make the gasket. You have some material, and the housing it sits in is still mounted to the underside of the hood. It looks like the previous gasket melted, which is why you had some weird gummy rubber stuff stuck to the airbox in 2015 when you bought the car. You tried finding Brian Greenes contact info from when he made them almost 20 years ago, but no dice.