Re: bad radiator or blown head gasket? cracked head?

[Turbo23dog@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 06/18/2001 3:09:07 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
shawm@domain.elided writes:

<<  All the hoses do heat up, but not the radiator.  I did a test on my ix to 
see what it would do, and the radiator did heat up as expected.  Thanks for 
any advice/help/info on this!!   >>

Shawn,

You might tell if your head or head gasket is bad by carefully sniffing for 
the smell of   gasoline or exhaust gases in the coolant.  Have you checked to 
see if the rad is clogged?  Remove the drain plug from the bottom of the rad 
and catch the coolant in a basin.  Leave the drain unplugged and pour water 
in the top at the expansion tank.  If not, then you might have a bad rad.  

I'm battling an overheating problem too. My 84 533 was overheating from 
standing cold to the red (boilover) in about 10 minutes. This week I replaced 
the thermostat, coolant cap, heater control valve, and pulled the water pump 
to check that it was intact (it was). The previous owner had the rad and the 
fan clutch replaced by BMW Arlington last year.  The return side of the rad 
never gets hot and the aux fan never comes on.  I've checked the fans by 
bridging the two wires and the fan works fine. 

I now think my overheating is due to an air pocket in somewhere in the 
cooling system that is blocking the coolant from circulating.  I've already 
had a new rad last year (with fan clutch).  

Today I kept at it and think I got it.  I left the coolant cap off and the 
defroster on high to make sure coolant was running into and out of the heater 
core.  I ran the engine till just before the point it boils over.  There were 
lots of air bubbles coming out the coolant expansion tank.  I then let things 
cool down, added more coolant and repeated.  Also, I have a bleeder screw on 
top of the t-stat housing.  I kept checking this to ensure that I had no air 
bubbles coming out, just a steady stream of coolant. After about three tries, 
I think I finally got it.  I was able to drive around the block about 10 
times without overheating.  

Oh well, on to the next project. 

Rich Franco
Burke,VA
84 533 5sp Burgundy 102k miles

------------------------------

End of bmw-digest V9 #1835
**************************