Robinhood150

Went to AZ over labor day weekend for a little dove hunting--not quite as good this year, limited at 9am instead of the usual 8am.

1) Anyways, going up those long hills while it's 110 deg out was just too much for the cooling system. It would also over heat if I tried to keep the speed up to 75mph (speed limit). The engine was fine when it was new, no problems in AZ.

So my question is should I just flush the system or put in a heavy duty radiator? Supposedly the system was flushed when the dealer replaced the head gasket, but there are brown flakes in the overflow reservior. Is that scaling?

2) To make matters worse, the air conditioning died when it was 110 deg out. It actually started to die last year, under the same conditions. It went out for about an hour and then came back full blast. Then, a couple months ago it died for a couple minutes and then seemed to fix itself. When we started the AZ trip the AC was fine until we hit the really hot areas. Then it wouldn't cool as much, but it was working somewhat. A couple days later, when we came back it was working fine, ice cold and it was still 110 deg out. It works fine now that I'm back at a normal climate.

So is that an indication of low refrigerant or is there something more ominous? It's a V6, auto tranny, original-old style refrigerant.

Thanks,
Steve

teddy

Might be " something more ominous" my 1992 3.0 V6 had the same symptoms until all the belts seized up. I got it towed to the shop and the culprit was the timing bracket. The bracket is right in the middle of all the belts and has a pulley on it for tension on the timing belt. might want to get it checked out. My bracket pulley when spinned sounded like a soda pop can with gravel in it.

A/C you might check to see it the caps are on and if they are not sometimes crap gets in there like mud or sand or gravel and it affects the valve which will seep out refrig.

I'm not saying this is whats happened but from my experience sounds very familiar

Robinhood150

Thanks,
so the bearing siezed up on the timing pulley or the bracket fell off?

Steve

teddy

The bracket is mounted right in the center of the engine and the pulley is attached to it.

teddy

ya the pulley siezed because the bearing were shot