Heating Issue

[IW84NO1]

Hey has anyone had any issues with their stock 305 getting a little too warm?? I've replaced my thermostate, flushed the radiator, had the antifreeze tested for the proper concentration, and it still gets warmer then it should!! Could it be the factory gauges going bad or a weak water pump?? Has anyone else had this problem, as a girl I don't always trust repair shops.....any help/ideas would be great, thanks!!!

[Sinister]

There is not alot of air-frow on the front of these cars but adequette enough, how hot is it running...what's the read out? and do you have the plastic air-damn underneath? you should have it on there to capture/redirect the air-flow while the car is moving, also is there an electric fan on the car or is it a pully fan?

First off you should change the thermostat which you did...is it a 160? that will be your cheapest repair, check the fan provinding it's electric that it's working...check the fuses, relays...do you drive in stop & go traffic because the cars tend to get a little warmer than usual especially during traffic jams.

[IW84NO1]

When it gets 'hot' it’s right on the first red line! It does still have the plastic air damn and it’s undamaged. It’s the factory fan, its working I can hear that and the thermostat was replaced with the same size that came from the factory. The first time it got hot was on a hot day in stop and go traffic, but the other times that were after I changed the thermostat were on the interstate coming back across the state from vacation. If I ran the air (which works great) it would get hot, so I’d shut it off and it would go back down to almost normal which is 200 - 210 for this car........what made me wonder about the gages is the mechanic that changed my thermostat used a gage in the radiator and just let it run in the shop for an hour and didn't have a problem it was 180 he told me which is crazy because according to my factory gage it's never ran that low.......I’m just stumped and there's not a lot of help from people around here, I just really want to avoid any damage to the motor, it just turned 97,000 I’d like to get more out of it!!!

[Sinister]

Maybe the guages are at fault like you say but one thing for sure I would put in a 160 thermostat and an aluminum radiator...that would be my first choice because I did have the same issues as you, after that I put in a dual electric fan and got rid of the pulley fan...the good thing about the dual electric fan is that one side continuously runs nonstop as soon as you fire up the car...then the other kicks in when it reaches 200-210 and shuts off automatically when it cools down to 180, maybe that could give you an idea.

[Iroc-z86]

the factory fans do not turn on until the last 1/4 mark before redline. my buddy had a completely stock 91z with dual fans and it got to the redline on the gauge then the fans kicked on and brought it down to just under 220.

These cars run hot. I have an 86 iroc with tpi and the tpi does not kick on the fan til its at the redline. too hot for me. so i have an override switch that turns them on and it has never gone over the first 1/4 mark with 180* stat, stock replacement water pump and gm radiator. the stock cooling is more than adequate for a stock to slightly modded motor.

sinister is right about the air flow from the front end. it sucks.

[IW84NO1]

Thank you both very much now I can get somewhere on resolving this issue!!!!

[bumblebee rules]

You say it only got hot when you ran the a/c ???? I would try to run without it for a couple of runs and see if it runs normal ??? It could be you are low on r-12 ( or what ever you run in the a/c ) and it is working to hard ??? JMO here hope it helps :-)

[Cody]

??