> 2nd, I've seen thermostats fail in the "shut" position. It seems to
> me that your thermostat has failed shut. Coolant is not circulating.
> It's just stuck in your block. That's why it's not blowing into the
> coolant bottle.
I have noticed that on my car I get a good flow in the header bottle even
while the engine is cold and the thermostat should be shut. But come to
think about it, the water pump as 4 connections. And now it just occurred
to me, why do they call it a water pump when it is really a "coolant"
pump?
Anyway, I think that there is enough flow through the other pipes that
there
should still be plenty for a good piss stream in the header bottle while
the
thermostat is shut.
Okay, let's get another beer out of the fridge and look at that old water
pump... hold on just a sec...
Okay I'm back (obviously). You should see my refrigerator parked next to
my
DeLorean. It's stainless steel. Not just the car; I mean that the fridge
is SS too. I put an '83 style hood logo on the corner (I'm still talking
about the fridge, not the car.) It gets a lot of laughs.
Yep, the "coolant" pump has 4 pipes. I presume that the only "out" ones
are
on top, and those must go through the thermostat. And that doesn't
explain
why I get a good piss stream in the header bottle while the engine is
cold.
Maybe the small pipe on the back is also an "out". That makes a fairly
straight shot to the header bottle. {loud belch}.
> Perhaps what really happened was, the thermostat failed shut, and an
> increase in pressure blew the hose off into the belt, it got caught
> and shredded the belt.
Good thinking, but he wasn't clear on which hose he was talking about. He
said, "...the hose from the overfill tank to the water pump had come off."
EEENGK! (Okay, we need to come up with a new keyboard abbreviation for
making that error buzzer sound on game shows.) He could be talking about
the header bottle hose or the "coolant" pump hose. I'm guessing that he
is
talking about the pump hose, but he didn't specify that it shredded with
the
belt. Only the belt shredded.
> One last thing that I've seen cause this, thought it may sound
> strange, your radiator cap on the coolant bottle is supposed to vent
> at a certain pressure. If it fails to do this, the coolant can't
> overcome the pressure to flow into the bottle.
Interesting theory, but EEENGK! The pressure should be about the same
throughout the whole system. Anyone here good at fluid dynamics? Andrei?
Martin? A good pump shouldn't have any problems producing enough of a
gradient to get the piss stream to flow in the header bottle.
One thing to consider is if the system has ever had any kind of stop-leak
added. On "normal" cars this stuff has a tendency to plug the small hose
that goes to the reservoir bottle. So maybe it could clog the smaller
hoses
in a DeLorean too.
You might want to try removing the thermostat and seeing what happens.
Try
boiling it in a pot of water with a cooking thermometer and see what
happens. I cooked up some thermostat soup a few weeks ago with old
thermostats from Jim Sleeth, Mike Cohee, and two thermostats of my own.
FWIW, Mike's was the wrong variety opening at too cold a temperature. It
worked fine within it's own specs, but is the wrong spec for a DeLorean.
Jim's thermostat was just plain bad. It only opened half way on the first
try. I noticed that the valve was shifted slightly out of place, so I
straightened it. It wouldn't open at all after that. Jim only complained
that the car ran too hot but didn't really overheat. But since this
thermostat did open at least partially, I can't use this anecdote as a
rule
for your car. Oh I am buzzed on beer! Can't you tell?
Walt
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