hey guys, i am in some trouble and i dont know what tha hell is going on.
i am sure some of you know the story about my radiator.
any way, everything was working fine for the past 2 months now.
but last night, something happened and i dont know why tha hell it happened.
i was driving to the local gas station to put some air, and then i drove to taco bell to get some food.
so i am driving and everything is fine, and  suddenly, i noticed on my dashboard where it says if the car/radiator is hot or cold, or in the middle, which is where it supposed to be, so i noticed it, and i see it is above the middle line, towards the "H" sign. i keep driving to taco bell for about a mile and a half, and by now, it is significantly way over the middle bar, and it keeps going up towards the "H"{Hot} sign.
thank god i reached taco bell, and parked it on the side and went to eat and let the car cool down for the moment.
i finished eating, got back to my car,  started to drive. it started fine but again, it started to over heat. i was able to reach home safely and park the car in the drive way, and i said to myself i will look at it in the morning.
so today, i wake up, eat breakfast, and go out side. not sure what is going. i pop the hood and take off the engine coolant cap where you put the anti-freeze and look and see that there is no water/antifreeze in there.
i about half a galon of anti-freeze, maybe less, and star the car. i go under the car, and i see that it is not leaking and everything is fine. i drive the car around the block for about 5 minutes, and again, it starts to overheat???!!!
i go back to the house, park the car, take out the radiator after i flushed all the liquid of course, and look at it. i tighten all the screws, changed the tranmission hose on the bottom, and flush the radiator with plaint water. i put in clean water on the top hole of the radiator and dirty water came out from the bottom of the radiator. did it a few times until the water was coming out clean.
i put the radiator back into the car, run it, for about 5 minutes. i open a new galon of antifreeze and i pour almost all of it into the engine coolant, let it run for a bit more, and then i start driving.
i drove for about 5 minutes and i see that the car is overheating, again!!!!! i open the engine coolant again, and pour in the remaining for the new anti-freeze that i poured earlier, and drive  again. as i am driving i see that it shows that the car /radiator is over heating, but then suddenly, i see that the bar goes back to the middle{normal or where it should be}.
it did so a few couple times and it kept going gradualty up  towards the H and  went back down.{this was today at around 5:30p.m when i was on my way to work}.
i said fornicate this, called my boss and told him that i cant work tonight because the car/radiator is over heating.
so i drove back home, poped the hood, took out my flash light and i see the the passenger side of the radiator is steaming from upper side of it, right where the grill of the radiator is.
any one, help please.!!!
is it just the radiator it self that is fucked up and i need to get a new on, or is it something else?
god i hope its just the radiator...
please help....

where is the radiator cap? and how hard is it to replace the thermostat?

i am not really in the mood for kidding in this situation.. if i was, i would say i am : |
in this picture though, can you point me out the thermostat?



and thats all it requires? just taking out 2bolts and taking the old thermostat out and putting the new back in?

You should pick up a Chilton's manual while you're buying stuff for you car.

Hey DT, how you been : )
any way DT, i would like to ask you, does the thermostat goes inside that metal coolant housing{like the one that you highlighted}?

here is a easy way to check to see if you're thermostat is working befor you remove it . turn the car on and let it get hot with the hood open once the car gets to its normal tempreature range go to the radiator find the bottom hose reach in and touch  dont grab if it is working right it should be very hot hot enough to burn you if it is not hot than it is thermostat or water puimp let the car cool down completely dran some of the collant remove the housing mention earlier remove thermostat reinstall housing with no thermo stat then fill coolant back up and run the car untill it gets hot again check the bottom hose again if it is hott then you know that it is the thermostat if it is not hot and the car is still over heating then the  problem is probly  the waterpump
Pugsley 

alright, some news guys... not soo good, but i guess not so bad, because now i know its not the thermostat.
Well, I bought a new thermostat, i bought the gasket too, but the gasket that they gave me was the gasket for the coolant, not for the thremostat it self, so i just used the old gasket for now. but any way...
i put the new thremostat, it wasnt that hard to replace, just 4 bolts, and everything was fine, i let the car warm up for about 5 minutes after i put the new thermostat, drove it, and it looked like it is working fine and stayed on the middle on the gauge where it shows if its hot or cold, but then, it started to warm up.. : (
i knew that it wasnt the thermostat right there.
i came back home, opened up the hood while the car was still running, and i see the same thing, the upper left{passenger} side of the radiator is steaming, and the radiator it self is sort of overflowing with anitfreeze from the bottom of it, like it saying too much antifreeze..... dont get me wrong, it does not literally throws water away, but it drops a few drips in a steady pace, and i checked everything earlier, and there are definetly no holes that are causing the water to leak.
now, what i also wanted to mention is that i noticed that when i came back home, and parked in the driveway, and let the car idle like that, it seems like it shows that the gauge in the dashboard, it shows that its not warming up. what i am saying is that when i was driving, it was going up steadily, but after i came back home, and let the car idle like that, it stayed at a steady level of hotness, and i believe it went down just a bit.
another thing that i wanted to mention guys, is since my last accident{3 months ago}, when i bought this radiator from the junkyard, it didnt come with radiator fans[{there are 2 of them i believe}, it was just the radiator it self. however, when the accident happened and when my stock radiator broke during that accident, one of the fans was still good, and it was the big one that sits on the driver side of the radiator, but the small one was cracked and bented bad, so i just tossed that one out. Ever since i bought this used radiator in the junk yard, i put my stock fan{driver side fan} that was still okay from the accident, but i never put the passenger side fan on the radiator it self. i asked some one if it is okay if i just drive with one radiator fan{the big one} and they said its okay, and there was some one that actualy drove his car like that for about a year, and it was fine.
so i want to know, is this why the radiator/car heats up because i dont have that passenger side fan on the radaitor? or is it the water pump? or it may be the radiator it self that needs to be replaced?
god i hope i can finish this by tommorow, because i need to get back to work tommorow.

So you're losing coolant.  Are you having overheating problems?  You said it warms up, but does it warm up enough to worry about?  If it's the water pump, you'll likely hear a whurring/rattling sound.  Or you'll see leaking by the water pump.  The second fan, is for the A/C only.  It only comes on when the A/C is on, so no worries about that.