Hey all

Well, I drove 4 hours from home and my 95 4runner decided to cause me grief. If anyone can help me figure out my problem, I'd appreciate it. Here's the symptoms.

The engine is overheating and topping up the coolant is not helping. There's steam and air shooting from the small hose off the the rad cap into the reservoir. There's obviously no circualation happening. Also, the heater inside is blowing cold air. Not sure if that's related or not, but that started yesterday, and the overheating shortly followed.

One theory is that because it's so cold outside maybe the coolant froze in the radiator (not enough antifreeze to water). I've parked it in a heated garage for now to see if that helps. Perhaps it could also be the the thermostat? Any thoughts? Thanks, any thoughts will help me immensely as I have to get back home tomorrow! THanks!

 

could be the thermostat, i have personaly never had one fail (always replaced them before i had problems) but i have had a clogged radiator a time or two, when i bought my 85 it had a cooling issue, the PO had put 2 new watter pumps, new thermostat, new heater core, and all new hoses but never looked at the radiator. i decided to try my luck with it and drained the radiator.. right then i realized that when the petcock valve would barely drip coolant that she was toast. so i spent a half hour pulling the radiator one morning and took it down to the local radiator repair shop and about 90 bucks later i had a fully cleaned, painted, pressure checked radiator. poped it in and BAM no more cooling issue, they imformed me that the radiator was roughly 80 to 85 precent clogged lol alot of people wont think to look at the radiator they will automaticaly look at the watter pump or thermostat.

 

I'm assuming you have the 3.0. You could always do the "dump the thermostat" in boiling water to make sure it's opening an closing.

x2 about the radiator. I put a new radiator in my truck and it was a night and day difference. Growing up, my dad's '87 Caravan use to over heat and he pulled the radiator and had it flushed. Same thing, it was like 85% clogged. Never had an overheating problem after that.