Swaglife81

Car overheated within 5 minutes of driving. Hit 250 fast before I shut it down on the side of the road.

Steps I followed.

Drained coolant from radiator by drain plug
Removed reservoir
Cleaned reservoir
Around a gallon came out, maybe a tad more.
Than removed air relief valve

Added 1 gallon of distilled water and 1 bottle of water wetter over the course of 4-5 minutes with air relief plug removed.

Coolant never came out of air relief valve.

Tightened air relief back

Radiator was fully topped off, after 15 minutes levels never dropped. Added coolant to reservoir to cold fill line.

5 minutes of driving car hit 250+ fast and of course boiled over.

Lower Radiator Hose was cold as ice

Waited til car cooled off at gas station, added more water with relief valve removed but didn't take much.

Burped hoses myself by hand to motivate air escaping.

Now car runs around 226-236 after round 4. What am I missing. Everything was fine prior today, car ran around 186-199 all day prior

zakmartin

I vacuum purge and fill the cooling system to avoid air pockets. I can't think of a better, faster way to do it.

If you can't purge the air from the system, take it to a shop or buy the right tools for the job (in this case, you'll need a UView 550000 Airlift Cooling System Leak Checker and Airlock Purge Tool Kit and an air compressor.)

CK_32

iTrader: (1)

You have air in the system. You need to fully burp the system of air.

Run the car with the rad cap off (cold engine of course) and turn the heat on full blast. You will see the fluid rise and fall. It will bubble and purge. Just keep filling until no bubbles, air or surges happen and it stays at a full level and stops over heating. It will drop to where you can't see any fluid in the cap make sure it fill it ASAP so it doesn't suck more air.

When the car get started hot enough and the coolant starts to boil turn the car off and let the car fool. Then do it over again.

Mine took approx 5 times of doing this and running for about 5 - 10 min each session to burb it completely.

Now no matter how hard I get on it even with out rad fans I never get above 160 F. If you have a vaccine system it's easier but more $$.

Mine is the easy way, just takes longer and more attention to the fluids while burping.

zakmartin

CK - I tried it that way on a different car, got sick of the wait and just got bought the vacuum system. Cost about what it'd set me back to have the dealership do it and now I have it for life (I already have 2 compressors, so that wasn't a consideration I had to make at the time).

Same thing with brake bleeding. Without a pressure bleeder, you're more or less screwed on the Z. There's a lot of specialty tools you need in order to do work on these Nissans. At least it's not as bad as Volkswagens.

Swaglife81

I finally got all the air out where coolant can actually come out of the air relief valve. It took forever so I do think next time I will by a vacuum, might as well get it when I do the system again. My winter mix is 25% coolant, 75% water and a bottle of water wetter. We barey see any days below freezing and nothing really past 20 degrees faren. After filling, warm ups, and waiting, the air wasn't really coming out. So I used a funnel at the actual air relief valve and filled coolant there. Once I got about 1/8 gallon in coolant of course flowed to the hole where the relief plug is. All has been well since.

The factory service manual saying remove air relief plug and fill til coolant comes out didn't work in my case. The coolant never rose that high. In the past all my cars kind of purged themselves or just a few burps on the radiator hoses and the car is driveable in 5 minutes. Maybe a top off after 1 round of cooling. Either way the overheat was my fault since I wasn't patient. This was the first time bleeding the system on a G/Z

FYI - I probably did about 7 rounds of adding coolant, burping, warming up and cooling down. Without a vacuum and a lot of time. I think once the radiator is topped off, reservoir is filled to the cold line. Than add coolant in the opening of the air relief and time will be cut down drastically.

CK_32

iTrader: (1)

Yea it with out a doubt is tedious and time consuming.

I personally enjoy it tho. Then again this is my driveway project. If this was my daily or main I wouldn't enjoy it as much. Only reason I bought the Z and in the condition it wasn't in. Me loves me them money pits and project cars haha

rancor

https://www.amazon.com/Lisle-24680-S...YEN65ZHW916SAG

Jack up the front of the car and use this if you don't want to/can't use a vacuum system. This worked perfectly for my HR but they have a better design.

Swaglife81

I'm somewhat in your shoes but my daily driver is my project car, ha. I bought this 03.5 G with 200K with some minor issues but a lot was done to it already. Like I can't find a single bad bushing on the car at all except for 1 lower ball joint. So some other poor sap did the work already. Paid $5k for it and has a low mileage used engine in it. Doing work yourself isn't expensive, so I don't mind the project. Last week did valve covers, painted intake plenum and valve covers and did a wire tuck. Now that was tedious work.

CK_32

iTrader: (1)

Oh yea if you've done a wire tuck burping out the air is a cake walk lol