Damn I overheated

[FunElan]

I've been driving the ti to work all week, it's been running nice. I have sat in a lot of traffic this week though, not fun at all. Today I noticed it creep up to about the 3/4 mark when I was sitting at a light a few blocks near my house. Then when it turned green and I drove away (down a big hill too), it resolved to the straight up position. When I got home I let it idle on the driveway for a bit to see what would happen. Sure enough, started creepin up. So I turned it off and looked under the hood. What I noticed:

-Evidence of coolant coming out of the radiator somewhere near the cap. It was leaking a little under the upper hose fitting. There was some moisture to the left of the bleed screw as well. There was also evidence of coolant stains on the panel just behind the kidney grills.

I topped the coolant up last weekend. It's already down an inch. on the reservoir.

When it cooled down I checked under the oil cap- no sign of oil and water mixing. I ran it with the A/C on- fan still works.

My thought is that it needs to be bled. Ever since I had the thermostat changed, the hot air from the heater takes a little while to be hot. Before it was instant. Even today I turned the fan on while it was idling in the driveway- luke warm on the cold setting, a little warmer on the hot setting.

Is my thought process correct here guys? Is there a way I can make sure the fan is working when it's supposed to?

Thanks for being a great community.

-Matt

[pdxmotorhead]

BLed and maybe a new cap..

Dave

[FunElan]

The cooling system was bled a year ago. Is it possible that air gets in the system over time? I even drove the car to Arizona and back a couple times and it didn't overheat.

[spidertri]

When was the thermostat changed? If it is leaking then air is getting in.

Bleeding it doesn't take long at all, why not just try it?

[FunElan]

Thermostat was changed in August or July of last year. I'm planning on doing it tomorrow, I just wanted to verify if the cause was different in case I needed to order parts to do a repair (time is limited). But I guess I'll never know until I tear it apart.

[FunElan]

Attempted to bleed the system today. When squeezing the upper radiator hose, some coolant seeped out of the top corner of the radiator. It was also leaking from the side near the expansion tank. Looks like it's time for a new radiator .

And even after we bled the system, the air was still-luke warm. I'm guessing there's a massive air leak.

[jca]

Radiators on e-36's are on borrowed time after 100k.

[brandonm]

hope you get it fixed matt!