Last night leaving the Wexford show, on 19 it started overheating. Managed to get to a Sunoco and filled it up with water, and gave it another shot. My dad and I figured that if we get on the freeway, it would cool better because the fan doesn't work; it'll overheat in stop n go traffic and in drive-thrus. Well got on the freeway, went down to 240, and back up to 260. We didn't make it a mile after the cranberry toll booth.
Fast forward 3 hours later, a friend of my dad had come all the way from Washington PA with a trailer to get the car. We left it in Washington last night at his house, and went to bed at 2:30.
This morning my parents and I head back to his friend's house to work on it. Replaced the thermostat, threw in some coolant, and then noticed something else. The connector at the cooling fan, the ground was melted, and wasn't gronded anymore. Fixed that by getting rid of the connector and hard wired it and insulated it with electrical tape.
On a test run, the gauge was reading dead cold, even after 5 minutes. After 6-7 minutes, it started to climb....and climb.....right to 260*. Great, the water pump is shot, so we limp back to the house. Also, the fan isnt pushing any warm air thru the radiator. The coolant isnt making its way out of the engine. Upon taking it off, I realized it was electric. Holy crap! I actually had no idea, I wasnt told the pump was electric. I knew it was a Meziere pump, but didnt know it was the $530 electric one; sweet.... So we removed it and manually put 12 volts to it to see if it runs; it does. We check the wiring and that's where it gets aaallllllll ****ed up.
The relay was mounted on the fuel rail; cute. Better yet, it's grounded to the fuel rail, eventually gets hot and burns that ground, too. So we fix the wiring there too, reinstall the pump and insulate the wires and connectors, and turned the key to the ON position. We can hear the pump running.
So that took up the rest of Friday night and all of today. Major props to my dad's buddy for using his neighbor's truck, his trailer and driving from Washington to Cranberry, ...leaving his house at 10 PM.
No heads were warped in the making of this story.
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