I finally found the cause of the Miata's overheating. First I replaced the thermostat like me pa recommended. It was an easy affair; two bolts, gasket scraping, old one goes out, new one goes in, new gasket, two bolts and done. Unfortunately, the car overheated again when I took it out for a test drive. So I started poking around. The problem looked like this: Once the engine gets hot enough (still normal) the fan that's supposed to keep it cool stops turning so the engine continues to get hotter and hotter. Why? Hot coolant, that passes through the thermostat, triggers a thermo-switch, that triggers a relay, that turns on the fan. So the first thing I checked is if there's coolant, check. Now that the thermostat's replaced we know it works. I bypassed the thermo-switch (made it turn on) and the fan still didn't turn on. So then I bypassed the relay and the fan still didn't turn. It was starting to look like it was the fan that was broken. So I plugged in my trusty voltmeter to the fan and could see it was getting power but wasn't turning on. So I guess it's the fan. That won't be cheap. Not getting a freebie on this one. Here's some random photos of the thermostat replacement.
That's the car with the hood open
That's the new thermostat
That's the old thermostat inside its casing (the thermo-switch's on top)
That's the old thermostat with the casing off
That's the new one installed safely with the casing back on. The red goo is sealant.
That's me wondering why it's still overheating.
That's the car with the hood open
That's the new thermostat
That's the old thermostat inside its casing (the thermo-switch's on top)
That's the old thermostat with the casing off
That's the new one installed safely with the casing back on. The red goo is sealant.
That's me wondering why it's still overheating.
facinating.
ReplyDeleteI'll pay you 8 bucks an hour to fix my window that isn't rolling down in my car.
Standard rate for a Mechanic I think is ten times that.
ReplyDelete