Just bought my 17 year old a 94 Accord EX (2.2L Automatic). Didn't have it 6 hours and it began to overheat. Took it to a shop -- got an oil change and they said that the radiator had "alumaseal" in it and that it possibly had "blown a head gaskett". My son had his friend look at it (mechanic) and he said if it were a blown gaskett it would lose compression. Told us to let it cool and this morning to take off the radiator cap and start it up -- let sit several minutes and if it SPEWS it's a blown gaskett -- it didn't spew so......

He's been driving it and it seems to overheat when the A/C is on. Turn it off and it will only start to overheat after about 30 miles. Any ideas? I feel like we just got screwed!!!!!

Is it the engine? Thermostat?? Cracked block??? Head gaskett??? All opinions from different mechanics seem to be different. Thanks! Stacey

 

Personally... I'd change the rad, fluid, and Thermostat to get all that "alumaseal" crap out of the system.
Sounds like a Thermostat is sticking, but like I said... I'd get all that junk out of ur car while ur at it!

 

Did you buy this from a person or a used car dealer? If from a person, call them up and ask why they put the seal stuff in the radiator.

You might also consider calling around and find a shop which will do a block test which detects combustion gas in the cooling system. It should cost about 25 bucks and will for-sure rule in/out head, head gasket, or cracked block problems.

And, yes...change out the coolant now.

Roy

 

You need to go through the troubleshooting process. Does it overheat if you let it idle for a long period? Still at idle do the fans turn on before it overheats. With the AC on does both fans come on all the time. When it overheats will tell a lot such as other than at stops. Head gaskets fail many ways. My 95 failed and the symptoms were it kept getting air in the cooling system and because of that the fan didn’t come on at temperature. If I started it up cold with the radiator cap off coolant would shoot out.

"alumaseal" could have been used for any leak. If they put it in it just means they were losing coolant and this was their answer. It could be a hose, radiator, heater core, freeze plug, head gasket, waterpump and many other items.

 

As said above I was already thinking from what you said that it was a fan issue. A/C has a separate fan for the condenser, so it could be its drawing to much from the other fan or something like that. Its hard to figure something out through text.

Could possibly be high resistance to the radiator cooling fan.

Does it overheat at highway speeds?

If it was a blow head gasket then usually coolant would be leaking in(causing the overheat) and would normally burn off as white smoke from the tail pipe.

Start with simple things, most of the time its a REALLY simple issue, but it can cause BIG problems

 

http://www.techautorepairs.com/overheating.html

this should help you diagnose it..

 

any kind of stop leak is bad and will typically cause the tstat to stick open cause it gets jammed up there. once you make the needed repairs, flush the system and replace the t-stat

 

I have used that type of stop leak in a lot of cars and never had a problem but in theory it should clog up heater cores and radiators.

 

go out and buy a rad flush kit there cheap, also before you do that check the oil for water and water for oil both of those would be bad then i would try a new rad cap cause it might be releasing pressure at the wrong psi