Posted by Jon Barnes on November 05, 2002 at 17:54:11 from 64.172.46.75
hey gurus ... after replacing the water pump (twice-it's a long story), the thermostat, the radiator,the fan clutch, the coolant of course ... hmmmm ... the belts but I don't think they could have a bearing on my problem- well, I keep overheating. I am fine at highway speeds but as soon as I get in stop-and-go, the needle starts climbing and when I finally get moving again, it is slow to go back down. The radiator I put in was a used one out of a 1977 530i parts car, an automatic. I wired my two temp switches to a toggle and even the auxiliary speed fan on high doesn't help much unless I am cruising at highway speeds. My old leaky radiator would go up to three quarters but no higher. SO, I thought I would make things all "better" by upgrading and replacing the cooling sys components but right now I am sorry i went there! I guess in my mind the only thing left is the used radiator as the culprit?? I remember reading about an online source that had new ones for 188 bucks or so? Can anybody save me searching or can anybody report good success and fitment with such a unit? Oh, and plus I committed the STUPID deed of using some stop leak and now, yeah, you guessed it ... the heater core is all but plugged! My heater fan had seized up and I replaced that as well. I used to have no fan but heat...now, a nice 3 speed fan but no heat! Aghhhh! oh and i'm gonna pull off a core change when I can't even fix a simple cooling system anomaly? Sheesh! Help! somebody!
frustrated - a - bit