overheating, I'm stumped. Options

[6strngs]

so today, I drive my car home from work. get out of the car and notice a strong coolant smell. I let it cool down for a while, then went out to check it. The radiator was still full with coolant, but the overflow tank was kinda low. so I poured some coolant in (pre-mixed 50/50). anyway, so I go to drive the car again and after a short trip, only a couple miles, I'm hearing this weird whining sound. I glance down and see that the water temp gauge is reading HOT! like, it was all the way into the red! I pull into the closest parking spot and shut off the car. I let it sit for about half an hour and decide to drive it back home. I start the car up, and the temp gauge jumps to 1/2 way. normal. and as I start driving, it starts climbing. it gets to about 3/4 of the way to hot and then very suddenly just drops back down to half. then it stays there the rest of the way home. I pull into my garage, and get to work. I tried my best to track down a leak and decided it appeared to be that the hose that feeds coolant to the throttle body was leaking. so I replaced it. so after a couple hours of work (decided to do some other stuff too since I had everything taken off anyway) I go to drive it again and same thing. the temp gauge reads normal, then it will climb in temperature, then drop back down to normal, then climb again, then normal. anybody have any ideas? thermostat? water pump? malfunctioning sensor and/or gauge?

[alltracman78]

It sounds more like you have an air pocket somewhere in the coolant.
It certainly won't hurt to replace the therm just in case though.

After you replace the therm, put the front of your car up on jackstands SECURELY so it won't fall [this includes pulling the ebrake] and let it run with the rad cap off. Keep topping off the coolant if it drops. Keep your heat on full the whole time.


Also, just FYI for you guys, overheating doesn't actually damage the HG, what happens is it CAN warp the head. Which then doesn't allow the HG to seal properly. So you get a BHG. But the overheating itself doesn't damage the HG.