Car overheats at night

aspro · Post by **aspro** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 3:16 pm

My ride over heats when I drive at night... temp goes over 3/4..
Sit in stop start traffic in over 35'c during the day and its cool as a cucumber.
It does it with out fail... increases to 3/4 steady... then some times falls back to where it should be.. then goes back up.
WTF!
Light sensitive cooling system, can anyone shed some light on it before i blow my cool!:rolleyes:

Sti_Brumby · Post by **Sti_Brumby** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 4:33 pm

All my brumby's go up to 3/4 then go to half. Seems normal on them. What type of car do you have?

BlackMale · Post by **BlackMale** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 4:53 pm

He has EJ20 L series and I believe it has had no issues since replacing the engine and gear box earlier this year. LOL Aspro I like the light sensitive comment, whole new ‘light’ to the ‘daily driver’.

Are you running air con or fans or anything different? (although I am sure you would have thought of this already)

SuBaRiNo · Post by **SuBaRiNo** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 8:24 pm

May i suggest it could be a wiring problem... perhaps having the head lights on is effecting the temp guage reading?? Possible... see what it does during the day with the lights on.

Dave

aspro · Post by **aspro** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 4:26 pm

May i suggest it could be a wiring problem... perhaps having the head lights on is effecting the temp guage reading?? Possible... see what it does during the day with the lights on.

Good suggestion Dave... but I have discounted this as it is actually hot and I drive during the day with my lights on... overflow bottle goes from below half to nearly overflowing.

Are you running air con or fans or anything different?

The only thing that is changing is whether the sun is up or down. Fans the same operating as they should.
Perhaps its something to do with the MAF playing up... denser air runs rich and gets hot... is this out of the question do you think?

AndrewT · Post by **AndrewT** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 5:55 pm

Jaffa wrote:He has EJ20 L series

EJ22 I beleive :P

Hmm that's very puzzling indeed. There simply HAS to be some other contributing factor other than the sun being up or down. I'm not calling you crazy but could it be an intermittent problem which has just co-incidentally happened during the night...
Perhaps the thermostat is sometimes not opening up?

aspro · Post by **aspro** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 10:47 pm

I'm not calling you crazy but

Ahhh come on admit it... you all think I'm just plain nuts.

I was going along with the intemittant thing but for the last two months... every day it runs just fine... but every time I drive at night it gets hot.

It cant be electrical because it really is hot... and i just cant fathom a thing such as a thermostat sticking or surely it would get hot in the heat of the day.

Friggin thing is possesed surely

93_Subi · Post by **93_Subi** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 11:07 pm

Dude stay away from the street drags and u'll be fine!!! haha jks..

Matt

Subafury · Post by **Subafury** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 11:45 pm

see what happens when u drive it as the sun goes down.....

im having my cooloing issue looked at in the next few so hopefully then i can shed some light on this problem too.

Gremlins · Post by **Gremlins** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 12:28 pm

Interesting one. I had a similar issue with a Torana that I used to own about 15 years ago. In this case it only had the red idiot light on the dash but occasionally it would come on while driving on absolutely freezing cold winters nights. Eventually traced it back to the fact that it was so cold on those nights the thermostat stayed fully shut and must have created a localised hot spot around the temp sender switch causing the light to turn on. Radiator was cold as on those occasions confirming no coolant flow. This probably won't be the problem with the Subaru as I doubt it would be cool enough at this time of year at night to get a similar condition, but shows you can get overheat conditions at night only!!

aspro · Post by **aspro** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 8:54 pm

Dude stay away from the street drags and u'll be fine!!!

that would be a laugh... turn up at a meet in the subaslug... steam billowing from the radiator... full of attitude Right who wants their ass whipped

Eventually traced it back to the fact that it was so cold on those nights the thermostat stayed fully shut and must have created a localised hot spot around the temp sender switch causing the light to turn on.

It cant be anything but the thermostat I guess... so weird it dosnt do it during the day though

Subafury · Post by **Subafury** » Tue Dec 05, 2006 11:18 pm

just in resolution to my "exteeme overheating" thread my overheating problem was caused by a blocked radiator.

aspro · Post by **aspro** » Tue Dec 05, 2006 11:46 pm

just in resolution to my "exteeme overheating" thread my overheating problem was caused by a blocked radiator.

I know this isnt my problem as i had it fully rodded out only 4 months ago...

And what do you know....Its done it again
Well I drove down to busselton early this morning... I left just befoe daybreak and sure enough within 8 minutes down the free way the temp guage is hovering above 3/4.

It stayed that way as it became daylight untill I stopped at bunbury.

Had a Macca's breaky topped up the coolant and drove to busselton and back Perth in over 30 degree heat middle of the day and it didnt get near 1/4

... it require a slight top up of coolant when I got back to Perth

subanator · Post by **subanator** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 12:39 am

Aspro, I agree with Subarino's point about a wiring fault, maybe for a test drive with the headlights ON in daylight hours (now that we have more of themwith daylight saving......LOL). See if the temp moves etc.

Smokey · Post by **Smokey** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 9:52 pm

Something else to try to help monitor the situation and possibly isolate some factors is to take an independent temp reading at day and at night and every time you drive the car. Best way I can think would be to use an infrared temp gauge, like the ones u stick in ur ear. I was doing this to monitor my castle nuts on each wheel as I thought they were getting too hot. This will help to determine the real temp of the engine without any possible electrical modifiers messing w the dash gauge. Even if the thermometer is not calibrated or 100% accurate it will still be consistent. Try taking the temp right close to the thermostat housing I'd guess.

Just a though.