ca95dream Posted March 5, 2009 Report Posted March 5, 2009 Hello All. I have a 1951 Plymouth 4 door cranbrook. It was running fine until i went away for work. the car sat for two weeks. it got home charged the battery and it started fine. after a while of driving, i noticed that heat gauge was going higher and higher. i pulled over and turned off the car. i looked under the hood and all i could see was smoke coming out of the oil. i waited a few hours but the car stayed hot, whats more at first it continued to get higher and higher. it now runs well but the heat is higher than i am comfortable with and higher than it used to be. i have checked the oil and it seems fine. i will be changing it just because soon. i toped off the radiator. any thoughts on what could be wrong? this is my first 50's car. i have always had cars from the 60 and so i am still getting used to som of the issues. any help would be greatly appreciated. Quote
RobertKB Posted March 5, 2009 Report Posted March 5, 2009 Welcome to the best forum on the internet. You should be able to get answers to any questions you have. Overheating can be caused by many things and the first to check is do you have enough antifreeze. Also check to make sure your themostat is opening. A common cause of overheating is the water distribution tube that runs the length of the block being plugged up with old sludge as well as the block being plugged up. A bad water pump could be the culprit. Search the site for previous threads on these topics as overheating has been discussed many times. I am sure others will chime in with ideas also. Quote
greg g Posted March 5, 2009 Report Posted March 5, 2009 You also may have a failing gauge. Get an inexpensive thermometer and put it inthe top of the radiator. check it reading against the gauge. You said you had vapor coming out of the oil filler. This can be common with engines with weak rings sufferin from compression blow by. Or it can be as simple as having a lot of condensation in the block caused by short runs where the engine does not reach operating temperature. What does your oil look like? Any white smoke coming from the tail pipe. Have you done a compression test. As said many things can contribute to overheating. The basic two are not enough coolant or insufficient flow there of, or insufficient air flow through the radiator. Quote
rolliejoe Posted March 5, 2009 Report Posted March 5, 2009 Thermostat would be the first thing to check. Take it out and put it in a pot of boiling water and see if it opens. Quote
martybose Posted March 5, 2009 Report Posted March 5, 2009 You also may have a failing gauge. Get an inexpensive thermometer and put it inthe top of the radiator. check it reading against the gauge. I agree with Greg. I went for years thinking that my motor ran hotter than normal, since the gauge usually read about 190. Finally I took out the temp gauge and put it, along with a couple of thermometers, into a pot of heated water. That's when I found that my gauge read about 30 degrees hotter than actual temp. It took me about 4 tries to figure out how to adjust the internal linkage, but it now reads within 5 degrees for the entire range, and shows 160-170 in normal driving. Marty Quote
Frank Elder Posted March 5, 2009 Report Posted March 5, 2009 Got any pictures or instructions Marty? Quote
martybose Posted March 5, 2009 Report Posted March 5, 2009 Got any pictures or instructions Marty? Not really. The gauge has a coiled bimetallic element, then a link attached to it that goes up at an angle to push against a lever attached to the needle. The link has an S-bend in it so you can adjust the length of the link. The needed adjustment is needle-nose plier work to get the right combination of angle and length of the link. I found it was real easy to get it to read say 200 degrees accurately, and then be a mile off at 160 degrees. It took me a couple of hours to figure out the correct combination of angle and length that worked across the range from 100 to 210 degrees, repeatedly heating and cooling a pot full of water with several thermometers in it to confirm as I fiddled with it. Marty Quote
P15Mike Posted March 6, 2009 Report Posted March 6, 2009 Good info Marty ! ....wasn't aware there was such an adjustment ...very good info ... as they say , you learn something everyday . Mike Quote
radioguy7 Posted March 6, 2009 Report Posted March 6, 2009 Search the site for previous threads on these topics as overheating has been discussed many times. How about when people ask questions we all just offer our suggestions or share our knowledge?? I have been on the recieving end of "go look for it, it's in the archive's somewhere" on other forums and after many tries of searching for the info I would just get frustrated and go elswhere to find the answer. What the heck else do all of us have to do?? we're here anyway posting Chili recipe's (not that I dont love a good chili ) so we should try to help anyone out with any question they have. Just my two cents Quote
ca95dream Posted March 7, 2009 Author Report Posted March 7, 2009 THANK YOU!! Thanks guys. I will try a few of those things and let you know what happens. I really appreciate the help. Quote
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