2001 Intrigue overheating

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InTitusville

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I've written this forum about my overheating problems but it's been a while so I'm doing a new post. I have a 2001 Intrigue with about 225,000 miles. It was running great until a few months ago when it started with this overheat problem. It seems to be worse in stop and go traffic and on the highway over 55 MPH. I replaced the thermostat, water pump and radiator and it still overheats. When it over heats sometimes the water in the expansion tank is low and if I slowly open the cap water will comes back in to the expansion tank and comes out the over flow. When the pressure finally goes down and I can take the cap off it takes about 1 1/2 gallons of water. Sometime I need to splash a little water on the thermostat to close it and the water in the expansion tank goes down and I can add more water. The inlet (driver) side of the radiator is hot and the outlet (passenger) side is cool, If I open the drain on the upper outlet side of the radiator and run the engine water gushes out.

Now I know most people would say since I replaced a lot of parts that it may be the head gasket but there is no white smoke and no water in the oil and the car doesn't burn oil. I had the compression checked and all cylinders are good. I was thinking it may be the catalytic converter clogged and causing too much back pressure or I'm open to any other suggestions.
 
Years ago on a prior car (Mazda Protege), it would overheat driving up hills, and that was diagnosed as needing a new cat. I probably had around 200K at the time. That was in California, so it's possible for a cat to expire without driving a car in a bad climate.

Although it's not the best situation to "throw parts at the problem" I would think putting a new cat on will free up the exhaust and moderate things, even that was not the primary cause of the overheating.

Maybe the secondary air is a contributing factor? A few of us lately have had to investigate that on high mileage cars.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_air_injection

I'm speculating but if the secondary air is out of spec, it may be causing the exhaust to run hotter. There is a thread here discussing it

http://www.oldsmobileforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14688

Another guess, but it might help to take the car up to high RPM several times. Blow the carbon buildup out of the exhaust. I have been taking my car up to 4000 RPM or so at least once a day the last several months. I think that has helped reseat the piston rings and cut down on oil burning.
 
swagled said:
Another guess, but it might help to take the car up to high RPM several times. Blow the carbon buildup out of the exhaust. I have been taking my car up to 4000 RPM or so at least once a day the last several months. I think that has helped reseat the piston rings and cut down on oil burning.
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If I high rev the car up about 3500 or higher while in park the engine bogs down.
 
InTitusville said:
If I high rev the car up about 3500 or higher while in park the engine bogs down.
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That's the rev limiter kicking in. Best thing would be to drive down the street doing 35-40, stick it in neutral, then rev.

Another possibility could be a blocked heater core. Do you get heat in the car if you turn off the AC and turn the heat all the way to max? My father has a blocked heater core on his '99 STS so he gets no heat and the car overheats going really fast or up a hill with the AC on. Even with the AC off and the heat on max you don't get any hot air blowing in, which proves it's the core.
 
Triguie_2000_GLS said:
That's the rev limiter kicking in. Best thing would be to drive down the street doing 35-40, stick it in neutral, then rev.

Another possibility could be a blocked heater core. Do you get heat in the car if you turn off the AC and turn the heat all the way to max? My father has a blocked heater core on his '99 STS so he gets no heat and the car overheats going really fast or up a hill with the AC on. Even with the AC off and the heat on max you don't get any hot air blowing in, which proves it's the core.
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Heat works great but doesn't het to cool the car. This is FL, don't need heat and now it's summer the overheat is worse...
 
Well if you're sure the head gasket is good (no grey blobs in the oil, no dark scale in the coolant, no "sweet smell" from the exhaust) then this engine should be fixable. You may also want to read up on other 3.5L owners experiences at the National Aurora forum http://www.proboards.com/ for additional hints.
 
Any possibility that the water pump is a reverse flow (pumps the coolant in the reverse direction); I don't know if this is possible in an Intrigue (but have heard of this in other engines). Any chance that the belt is routed incorrectly and turning the water pump backwards. These just guesses.
 
We're lucky the aftermarket supports our cars at all. :) I can't imagine a vendor offering a reverse flow water pump on the 3.5L

Hopefully when the OP replaced his thermostat he got the revised one with a larger opening.

I think the cat degredation sounds like a good hunch, though. If he's determined to fix this car, putting a new cat on isn't hurting anything and eliminates another question mark. It's at least a long term part and good for another decade.

I do agree he should make sure the heater core is clear. There needs to be enough flow from the core to get the thermostat to open. Make sure there is no air in the system, keep burping it and carry extra water... Large air bubbles impede the flow and that confuses the situation in trying to decipher the root cause.
 
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Final thought... If the car is relatively driveable, deliberately put an extra few thousand miles on it and have an oil analysis done. If there is coolant mixing into the oil and it's not visually detectible this will at least put a numerical PPM estimate on the problem.
 
C&C said:
Any possibility that the water pump is a reverse flow (pumps the coolant in the reverse direction); I don't know if this is possible in an Intrigue (but have heard of this in other engines). Any chance that the belt is routed incorrectly and turning the water pump backwards. These just guesses.
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When I took the old water pump out it look exactly like the new one, kind of wasted my money on it but at least I know that part get ruled out as the problem.
 
I just tried the jack up the front end trick again. I put it up on ramps and opened the drain on the radiator and continued to put water in the expansion tank while the care was running. If the drain plug is in but open water comes out the side so I did this for about 2 minutes then closed the drain and shut the car off. I drove about 10 miles and so far it didn't over heat. When I came back I check and expansion take was still full and the radiator seem to be about the same temp on both sides. Later today I need to drive about 20 miles and that will be a better test of the air in the system. the car almost sounds like it has some sort of exhaust problem or leak. I may stop at a muffler shop and see what they say. It almost sounds like a 4 cylinder engine rather than a 6.
 
I ment for you to remove the thermostat and large spring and leave it out.i am in the ny area and have had no issues.no leaks on the full circulation of crushed walnut shells.no head gasket leaks,overheating or issues with purging air out of the system.believe what you will.
 
Well now that the OP brings up an unusual sound while running, it opens up fresh questions. Agree with krivasolds. Mine is at 202K miles and the engine will pull hard when rev'd, and doesn't overheat. And ambient temps have been getting into the low 100s here lately too.
 
Well... I tried bleeding the system, put the front up on ramps and opened the drain valve in the upper right (passenger) side of the radiator and ran the car and added water in the expansion tank for about 2 minutes until the air stopped coming out the drain valve and closed the valve and shut the car off and topped off the expansion tank. Took it out today on a 15 mile drive and it over heated, the water in the expansion tank was boiling, had to wait for it to cool then put 1 1/2 gallons of water in, same thing happened on the 15 mile drive back.

I stopped at an exhaust shop and they couldn't tell me one way or the other on the catalytic converter causing it to overheat but the did tell me there's a hole in the resonator. I plan to have that replaced Thursday.
 
A hot cat doesn't necessarily mean a bad cat. Be sure your air/fuel mixture is good. Sounds like too much unburned fuel or carbon monoxide is reaching the cat. The investigation may lead back to the engine and be related to fuel pressure, leaky EGR, plugged PCV, etc. Oxygen sensors often err on the rich side when they are failing.
 
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