My OM602 Turbo cooling experience

[ichris93]

I thought I should post this over here too.

Today I was driving from Tampa to Lakeland, about 35 miles. With about 12 miles to go my car was rapidly approaching the 120º mark. I pulled off the highway and shut her down. Was feeling around to see what was hot. NOT the radiator or any of the tanks on the side of the radiator. Hummm, the thermostat must be stuck. By the way, it has always ran hot since I got it. Let it cool down some and then limped to Lakeland. Got into the neighborhood, shut it down and costed to the house.

I was going to finally fix my broken tranny dipstick but my cooling system seemed to beg more attention. Took the thermostat out and began to flush the system. WOAH, did the radiator seem to need a LOT of pressure to get water to run through it. Connected the garden house to the upper radiator hose to the radiator and then let it run through the radiator then through the block and out where the upper radiator hose would be connected. Let this go on while I ate dinner. Then I closed everything up and put SHOUT cleaning gel in it to degrease the system. Ran it and drove it for a while with the t-stat out. Drained it, flushed it, then put in water and Prestone Citrus Flush. The directions say you can leave it in your system for three days so I also put the t-stat back in and drove her around. When I was driving around it is just a hair over 80º. At stop lights it approaches the 100º mark but never hits it and quickly climbs back down as I get moving again, what an improvement! I will leave the citrus flush in over night and then put anti-freeze back in tomorrow.

Looks like my t-stat is fine and I am already much happier with the temperatures I am getting now. Like night and day difference. My radiator must have been really plugged up as the radiator gets warm and the tank on the upper radiator hose side gets hot now. I am now seeing how important it is to maintain a coolant system, at least if you plan to have the car over two decades.

I hope I didn't do any damage to my head, man these aluminum heads freak me out!