New thermostat install on swapped KA24DE, overheats quickly - how to bleeeeed

[dawagarage]

maaan, fuuuuck the KA and its notoriety for trapping air. have you heard of a swirl pot? it completely negates burping, it removes the trapped air for you. i got tired of the manual/regular and finally forked over 80 bucks (60 for swirl pot, 20 for lower rad hose connection.) i highly suggest everyone do the same, its well worth it.
a photo of how it works.

and where you can get it. POWERED BY MAX:
other companies make them too! idk about the prices or what other companies provide them.

[JKL1031]

Just wondering, in the meantime, should or could I block off my top hose for more heat? Would putting cardboard infront of the rad as well be worth anything?

[jt1583]

I don't think cardboard in front of the radiator is a good idea.

I consider my problem fixed, I re-bled the system once or twice and now the temperature bounces from 180-185, so I'm happy.

I verified there was indeed air in the system by first removing the bleed screw and squeezing the lower tube. I could squeeze it a good bit before any liquid came out of the hole. So I reinstalled the bleeder screw, removed rad cap, inserted fill funnel into the neck and put a bit of fluid in there. Then I removed the bleeder screw until fluid came out and reinstalled it. Ran the engine til warm with the funnel still in place while squeezing the upper and lower hoses, revving the engine, and bouncing on the car, left and right.

[JKL1031]

well ive done it for some days just for more heat. does fine in 38F+ Im putting it in the shop monday.

[JKL1031]

I got it back from a professional and now it slightly begeins to overheat. the the tstat seems to open up and i felt the bottom hose get hot once. and now its back cool.

Does the sttat only open when its hot or is it supposed to stay open or slightly open at all times?

[nismoman]

what makes you think its slightly overheating? i mean are you going by the stock gauge or what? The thermostat is closed except for the weep hole until it gets really close to the open temp then it should open relatively fast.

[JKL1031]

By slightly; when i was out, it was creeping up and down depending on engine speed and car speed, but still in acceptable levels. It finally went super high and boiled to the overflow. Its a slow speed problem fan or radiator. Back to the shop monday.

[JKL1031]

-facepalm circulation problem*

[bradg1313]

I noticed you said you had a swap, I have heard of the sensors from a 89-94, not working (making it read hot)for a 95-98... making it do the very same thing as you describe. Make sure you have the right sensors for the right year ka... Just throwin it out there

[JKL1031]

anyone ever ran their tstat mechanically stuck open?

[JKL1031]

..

own thread

[SpaceGuy85]

Originally Posted by jt1583

Hi guys, I believe this to be an issue with bleeding the system and while I have looked through a bunch of threads about bleeding/overheating, the bleed procedure is still unclear to me.

Setup - Stock KA24DE, koyo radiator, Defi coolant temp gauge w/ sender in upper radiator hose. Boiling-water method tested thermostat, recently filled the system with ~1.5 gallons coolant.

Quick background - I swapped in a used KA24DE recently and am just trying to get this damn thing running like stock. After installing it ran good, no leaks of any sort, except it would rarely get up to temperature. 140F was normal, maybe around 170 in traffic. So I got an OEM thermo and went to replace it and found nothing to replace, so I installed it. Some idiot was running this thing thermoless. After installing and filling w/ coolant, I used the bleed procedure outlined below. However I can't drive the car more than 2 miles if it's been warmed up without my Defi reading 200+. NOT GOOD!

Ok so to bleed here is what I did
-Jack front of vehicle up a good bit
-Undo bleed screw, and rad cap. Fill system til the radiator is full - nothing came out of the bleeder hole
-Then I ran the car, after about 5 minutes I saw coolant starting to splash out of the bleeder so I closed that. A few minutes later the radiator filler started splashing pretty aggressively, so I closed that.
-After this I tried to let it run but it climbed too hot and I shut it down.
-I allowed the car to cool and tried to fill it up but the system didn't want to take much more. The reservoir become emptied once but then I filled it and it was full for good.

Am I doing something very wrong here? My CA18 was easy as pie to bleed. I have heard about squeezing the lower rad hose during this whole bleeding process and will try it. I get another opportunity tomorrow to work on the car, so any advice is appreciated.

BTW, I read in another thread that if the thermo works it can only be air bubbles causing something like this, but what about blockages? What I am afraid of is the the previous engine owner removed the thermostat because of another more serious, underlying issue and I don't want to have this be the case, obviously. When I think about the coolant system, if the pump works, and the thermo works, and the radiator isn't blocked, what can go wrong? Can the engine have a blockage somewhere? But this would probably show high temps even w/ the thermo removed. Bah. this f'ing car

Thanks!

You problem is that you installed the new theremo in the wrong place. It is not the top posistion. the one on the front of the engine, next to the water pump is where the thermostat goes. If you put one in the location you listed, it will cause overheating.

SpaceGuy 85
2003 Nissan Frontier 2.4L