overheating help
 

ok so first off my truck has really been acting up with overheating. At highway speeds of 55+ i start to slowly creep up higher and higher until just before the redline then it starts boiling as i pull over. But the wierd thing is i put some water wetter in there and drove up the highway and back and on the way back i blew the radiator/heater core hose i dont know if its the inlet or the outlet its the one on the right of the firewall. Then i patched it with some hose filled it a little n thought i burped it and then drove the rest of the way to work and it overheated again and spilled alot of coolant on the ground. then drove to a near friends house half way home n filled the radiator again and burped it and drove it the rest of the way. and the wierd thing is that the temp gauge stayed at 2/5 of the way for the whole time home i dont think it moved and it wasn't boiling over when i got home. Before when i would drive my truck the tempature would always rise to just before half way and go up to just above half then drop while i was driving in town.

Ok so where im asking is do you think my temp gauge is falty? Or sticky thermostat? I know my radiator looks like crap and the mesh/vent part (the center) never really gets hot except aroud the corners Maybe the radator hose is clogged and the weakest place was the heater core hose? the engine was just rebuilt with 8000 miles on it with new waterpump n most things except the main waterhoses and radiator.

sorry if i left out any info. thanks

Sounds like a radiator problem.

year make and engine would be helpful. I had some overheating issues on my 1988 4runner v6 before I got the EGR system working. If you didn't hook that back up correctly, your motor will run hotter.

Jesse

Oh lol its a 87 toyota 4runner it has a 22re.

if you notice the center of the radiator is cooler than the outsides and the tanks on it.. then its a pretty good sign the thing is clogged.

You just told us the problem. No doubt didn`t think it out .

Time for a new or have yours cleaned if anybody does this for these little radiators any more .

A new core is also an option . Again it might be cheaper just to get a new one won`t hurt to replace the hoses while it is out.:camp:

you dont think that the uneven heating would be because i have no radiator shroud? and also are aluminum/plastic core radiators even worth the money? or should i go without a vehicle for another month and get a custom aluminum?

no shroud is 1/3 of the problem: air is not being pulled across the radiator evenly...
... but ...
at speed, there should be sufficient air flow across the radiator due to the forward velocity of the vehicle.

as for the heater core hose- the one with the valve in it is the 'inlet' to the heater core / 'outlet' from the engine, and the other without the valve is the return from the heater core to the water pump.

And besides all that, you said the radiator "never really gets hot except aroud the corners"... which suggests the radiator is severly clogged.
Like said above- "You just told us the problem...." You just didn't think it through.