Long story short... Blew a rad hose, it hit a pulley when hammering it. Swapped out the rad hose, raised the front end up 18" , filled rad with fancy funnel attachment. Heater turned on, squeezed hoses to help things along. Vented system with bleeder valve several times. Air bubbles stopped. Ran car for one hour raised. Went through Rpm range, all looked good. Dropped car down and went for test ride. Car ran fine driving calmly for 10 minutes, hit the throttle hard and back to over heating. Returned home, cracked beer with much head shaking.

Did I miss anything? Tomorrow I will buy a rad pressure test kit and see if the system is sound. I believe it is as all the steam is coming from the overflow tank. I guess I'll find that out tomorrow.

Regarding the overflow tank, is it vented...because it is now...
Could I have cracked it due to pressure? Checking the tank means pulling off the front bumper as it was moved during the build. Would it be wise to pull the bumper and have a look?

Any tips or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
​​​​​​ps. I have the pathfinder mod...

 

Did you have HOT AIR blowing out of your heater? Usually you can tell there's air in the system because it's not blowing hot air.

 

Yes I had heat blowing at idle and all rpms. Ran fine until I nailed it, then back to over heat.

 

I'd test for exhaust gas in the coolant just to rule out a blown HG.

 

Oh boy...I was hoping you wouldn't say that...but you are right. I'll buy a kit and do the check. There is no obvious tell take signs from the exhaust, I also changed the oil to see if water was mixed in. It looked fine.

 

Yeah hopefully it's not the problem but it's a definitely cause of overheating so you need to rule it out before going any deeper into the troubleshooting.

If it is ok then I would replace the thermostat if it's got more than 100k on it. Sometimes they stick intermittently but it's uncommon, more likely that they just fail and stick shut.

You also need to at least visually inspect the coolant reservoir, if it's cracked at the bottom and not holding any fluid then the radiator would probably end up sucking enough air back in to get bubbles in the system.

 

Thanks for your help. You make good points on solving the issue. Still waiting on Lisle head gasket test kit...so I started pulling the front bumper to have a look at the overflow tank.

 

I would bank first on air. Lisle fill free funnel ftw.

 

I bought the lisle and will have a go tomorrow. I "pressure tested" the overflow tank by blowing through the hose and putting a finger over the vent hole until I was blue in the face. It passed the test..

 

That is funny. Totally something I would do too.

 

Replace the radiator cap also

 

Thanks for your help guys, I appreciate it. I know this topic has been brought up a 1000 times...

 

This is the project you guys are helping with. Thank you.

 

Rear bumper fitment is a little off but I'm actually liking the wide body kit, any clue which one it is I've never seen it before, looks custom?

 

Oh ya that...The fitment was fine before the tow truck picked up the car when the hose blew and I had it towed home. The car was lower than the pictures you see when the hose went and it was a monumental hassle to get it on the truck. I've since raised the car about 1.5" . Next thing to do is fabricate a new tow hook set up if I get towed again...and I will. Some attachment tabs snapped when loading the car. It was a **** show . The tow truck driver was good and I was helping so no blame on anyone. I was just happy to get it home.

The body kit is from Top Secret, it's the Super G-Force kit. They are a big player in ***an but I haven't seen much of their stuff on the west coast.