Greetings,
I'm new to the forum, and after a long wait, I'm finally starting my first Samurai restoration - a 1987 Tin top.
I thought I would be starting with the rust repair this week (if anyone can point me to a good thread(s) on it, I'd greatly appreciate it!). However, the Samurai started to overheat.
Here's what I noticed - and have done - so far:
I was driving the vehicle a few miles daily.
It just started to get colder, so I began using the heat a few weeks ago. It worked, but only after driving longer than seemed necessary, and even then, barely.
Last week, I noticed while sitting in traffic, the heat gauge would go up midway, then sink back to almost zero when moving.
Two days ago, I started warming up the vehicle and left it to help a neighbor. Within 20 minutes (choke open) I returned to notice white smoke/steam coming from under the hood (not too heavy, but clearly visible), then the radiator cap popped off. I shut the engine off.
When re-starting later, after cooling, I noticed the when the temperature reached midpoint the upper hose (from thermostat housing) was warm (not hot) and squeezing it was firm and felt like squeezing a gel ice-pack (except warm) - it actually sort of seemed crunchy?
I let it cool, then opened up the thermostat housing only to find that the po had removed the thermostat. I had been driving it without a thermostat for weeks.
Today, I drained the coolant, the flushed the system with water (only)(it looked ok, not too bad at all)(ran the engine until warm, heat on high), put in the thermostat & gasket, refilled with new coolant (about 50-50 green coolant - distilled water), squeezed the upper radiator hose (it bubbled at the cap) with vehicle running, stopped vehicle (a gush of coolant came out open radiator), started the vehicle, topped off coolant, squeezed the upper tube, put on a NEW radiator cap, then turned off the vehicle.
After about ten minutes of idle, the temperature gauge was showing just above midway. The temperature seemed to be holding better, but I'm not convinced that it will hold when I drive/idle for longer. I plan to check it this weekend.
Here's the new and 'weird' part (to me). After doing everything above, with the system full and capped, whenever I squeezed the upper radiator hose, a small amount of white smoke would emerge from somewhere around the engine about 3 - 5 seconds later. It would be a small puff, then gone. If/when I squeeze the tube again, same thing.
Maybe the temperature is holding now; maybe it isn't. I'll know for sure soon. I'm a little skeptical though. The heat is working much better, but that puff of white smoke seems weird - just from squeezing the upper radiator hose - which is still only warm after the gauge reaches halfway.
Can anyone help me make any sense of this? Suggest a next step(s)?
Thanks for any help!
