To Hot And Overheating

Last Friday the Temperatures here were up in the upper 90's. My trucks thermometer read 107 at lunch time. On my drive to work I was probably about 20 minutes from my job site when I dash board warning light brought me out of my mindless zone that I get into when I commute and wondering why I saw a warning light flashing took my eyes to the temperature gauge to see that I was over heating.

I just happend to be coming up on a Walmart so I pulled off the high way and found a spot in the parking lot very far from the store itself and popped the hood. At 5:30 in the morningf I was suprised to see how many cars there was as it is in the parking lot. (No sign of Elvis or his custumized Pinto though)Being the Boy Scout I am and always trying to be prepared I grabbed 1 of the 7 or 8 1 gallon jugs of water that I always seem to be carrying with me and after it was safe to take the radiator cap off I started pouring in the water. 1 gallon didn't seem enough so I went for #2. Not enough, what the heck. I stuck my head under the front of the truck and started cussing up a storm as I watched the water pour out from somewheres.

I managed to make it to the job site with several stops to add more water. After the work day was done I filled up all my jugs and headed home. Lol, I managed to get about 8 miles to the gallon of water. There is nothing like driving home from work after a long hot day with the engine overheating and you have the heater on high trying tpo keep the engine just a little cooler. So....... last weekend I spent much of my time working on my wife's car and trying to resolve my cooling system problem.

I live by K&W block, head and engine seal so I flushed the system, added the sealer and then allowed the system to dry. I also picked up another thermostat and ended up going to 3 different suppliers for the 2 gaskets needed for the thermostat and housing. Sunday night I had everything good to go. My truck was running great. No leaking. I let it idle for almost 2 hours and the temperature never went over 195 on the gauge. I figured I had done good.

Monday morning I took my wife's car to work and I asked her to use my truck for the day. I figured that if she ran the truck locally to go to the store or whatever would be a good test for it. Needless to say that didn't happen. She didn't need to go anywheres all day.

I took my truck to work Tuesday.l The drive in was nice with absolutely no problems. THE DRIVE HOME ON THE OTHER HAND, GGGRRRRRRR.

Last night I was fuming as I tore apart the front of my truck and pulling the dang water pump out. There was a gasket shot on one side of the water pump and the sucker and me had it out. I ended up putting in another water pump since I was pulling the old one out anyways. So I would say that my day yesterday ended at about 9:30pm. I was dragging today.

The good out of it is that the overheating problem seems to be fixed but I am still shell shocked. I keep expecting that arrow on the gauge to just keep going up and up. Lol, I had 10 gallon jugs in the back of the truck this morning just in case....