QuestionHello Van
My daugter has a 1995 Oldsmobile Achieva with the four cylinder and I am having a problem with it overheating. First off I replaced the water pump and radiator one year ago. The car ran good but would burn antifreeze, so recently I put stop leak in the cooling system. That is when I developed the overheating. I replaced the thermostat last weekend. The fan doesn't come on but it does work. Could you help me out. I Thank you in advance for your time.
JR
AnswerHI JR,
That burning antifreeze reeks of a intake manifold gasket leak, or a head gasket leak. That coolant has got to be going somewhere.
And the fan is controlled by a relay, operated by the ecm, from signals from a coolant temperature sensor.
Normally the temp sensor is the problem, but a bad relay or blown fuse is also possible.
You can swap the relay with one of the others, and see if the fan starts to work, or acts the same.
Here is a link to a real good discussion about temp sensors, and testing them.
http://www.chevytalk.org/threads/showthreaded.php?Cat=0&Number=1366279
But I would sure want to find where the coolant is going.
Van
