More busted CRX stuff

Ryan Holton · **Posted:** Thu Mar 24, 2005 7:21 am

1988 CRX Si, 186k miles, D16A6, fresh rebuild with about 1,200 miles on it.
Out of the blue this weekend coming back from an autox to car starts to overheat rapidly. I get out and pop the hood to find a HOT upper water pipe and a COLD lower water pipe. I fiddle with it and make a couple of very short attempts to drive it. One time while pulling back onto the road, I spun the tires and got a bit of wheel hop and the gauge shot down like a rock, but after about 500 yards, started to climb again. Luckily we had someone towing in our caravan and we put my car on the trailer to get it home.

I figure that something is clogging the system and that its the radiator since its only 17 years old and one of the few things I didnt replace in the rebuild. Pop the new radiator in there and nothing has changed. So I figure its the T-stat, so I go and buy a new one at NAPA. Pop it in and nothing changes, overheats in like 10 mins.

So we take the T-stat out all together and it gets close to operating temp and the temp gauge mysteriously falls to its lowest point (almost like it quit working) and after about 10 mins of idleing gets close to operating temp and holds. I let it idle for about 20 mins and shut it down for the night.

WTF is going on here. It sounds like something is itermittently clogging and unclogging the cooling system or the water pump is only working sporadically. The water pump is new, but is NOT a OEM Honda pump (Autozone special). I think I need to replace the water pump with a OEM pump but wanted some opinions before I did.

TIA!!

Carl Fisher · **Posted:** Thu Mar 24, 2005 8:35 am

Maybe an air bubble in the system? Could explain the temp readings and the intermittent behavior...

JamesFeinberg · **Posted:** Thu Mar 24, 2005 8:45 am

I seem to remember a thread in the auto-x section of honda-tech recently which sounds similar to your problem. I think it was Scott Sawyer's Civic that was having the trouble. If I get a chance in a bit I'll see if I can find that thread again. I don't know if he solved it yet but at the very least there were a bunch of suggestions of stuff to check.

Jim

DickRasmussen · **Posted:** Thu Mar 24, 2005 9:29 am

Ryan,

The guage going "cold" and then "hot" is a common symptom of low water in the area of the temp sensor.

Are you absolutely sure that you didn't have the T-stat in facing the wrong way? (been there, done that).

Dick

Vincent Keene · **Posted:** Thu Mar 24, 2005 9:39 am

DickRasmussen wrote:

Are you absolutely sure that you didn't have the T-stat in facing the wrong way?

We've checked, and double checked that. It is in the correct way. BTW, in the CRX it will only fit one way.

Adam Ligon · **Posted:** Thu Mar 24, 2005 9:59 am

Had a simialr problem on a dodge dakota truck of mine. DId all kinds of searching and trying to fix it.

Turned out it was the upper rad hose collapsing under load and cutting offf the coolant flow. Just an idea

Aaron Buckley · **Posted:** Thu Mar 24, 2005 10:11 am

JamesFeinberg wrote:

I seem to remember a thread in the auto-x section of honda-tech recently which sounds similar to your problem. I think it was Scott Sawyer's Civic that was having the trouble. If I get a chance in a bit I'll see if I can find that thread again. I don't know if he solved it yet but at the very least there were a bunch of suggestions of stuff to check.

Jim

Yup, it was Scott Sawyer's car. They went through a lot, but did get it fixed. - AB

Ryan Holton · **Posted:** Thu Mar 24, 2005 10:19 am

What is Scott's screen name on Honda Tech?

JamesFeinberg · **Posted:** Thu Mar 24, 2005 12:07 pm

Ryan, here is the thread I was thinking of. After looking at it again, it may not help you that much since he didn't post what actually fixed the problem. Maybe you can PM him or something to find out the resolution.

Jim

Karl Shultz · **Posted:** Fri Mar 25, 2005 9:06 pm

It's your water pump. Same thing happened to the car I sold to Bowie Jr. It was a non-Honda water pump and the thing holding the drive pulley to the impeller failed somehow. So the pump would turn "sometimes" just not all the time.

When you replace it, replace it with a genuine Honda one.

Ryan Holton · **Posted:** Sat Mar 26, 2005 9:29 am

Karl Shultz wrote:

It's your water pump. Same thing happened to the car I sold to Bowie Jr. It was a non-Honda water pump and the thing holding the drive pulley to the impeller failed somehow. So the pump would turn "sometimes" just not all the time.

When you replace it, replace it with a genuine Honda one.

Rice, your words have been haunting me ever since the last meeting. "ONLY use OEM water pumps and oil pumps". I have an genuine Honda pump sitting in my hands as we speak. Thanks!

davedunn · **Posted:** Tue Apr 05, 2005 12:56 pm

I was having the same issue but had no problems once I took the t-stat out. The radiator in the crx is very efficient so it's going to run very cool w/o the t-stat in it. This was after replacing the bad thermostat with a new "good" one from autozone. Unfortunately, they seem to have some issues with thermostats being bad right out of the box. You may want to try that before pulling the water pump. A lot less work for something that's potentially part of your problem.

Ryan Holton · **Posted:** Tue Apr 05, 2005 1:08 pm

davedunn wrote:

I was having the same issue but had no problems once I took the t-stat out. The radiator in the crx is very efficient so it's going to run very cool w/o the t-stat in it. This was after replacing the bad thermostat with a new "good" one from autozone. Unfortunately, they seem to have some issues with thermostats being bad right out of the box. You may want to try that before pulling the water pump. A lot less work for something that's potentially part of your problem.

Actually, I replaced EVERYTHING in the damn cooling system (radiator, Honda Water Pump and Honda Tstat). Still overheated. I finally figured out that the heater core bypass valve is messed up and as long as I have it turned to heat, all is well. I am going to replace the valve after VIR-S.

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