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TR2/3/3A TR3 running HOT

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tinman58

tinman58

Jedi Knight
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During the drive to the show last weekend 90 miles each way the car ran hot. I can not figure out why.
1 timing is correct
2 thermostat is in the right way
3 new cored raditor (no problems before)
4 water pump spins
5 new head gasket (upside down??)
6 plenty of anti-freeze mix
7 12" puller fan
At freeway speeds the temp stays at about 210 but any up hill it climbes up to 230
At idle it will stay at about 190.
I am going to take off the top hose and the t-stat and run water thru to see if there is some blokage, (maybe a critter crawled in while the raditor was sitting for three months)
Any other ideas will help
 
Some things to think about :

1) When I was putting TS13571L together, I had the radiator rodded out and tested. Ran nice and cool on it's first outing, then on the second, longer trip it suddenly started getting hotter and hotter (eventually boiled over). Backflushing the radiator produced a LOT of crud ... apparently it had been lurking in the block and the sustained freeway speeds broke it loose so it got carried into the radiator and blocked the tubes.

Probably more crud still lurking, but it behaved nicely to/from/during TRfest. Only time it started creeping up again was in the extended stop and go on the way home; even then it never broke 210 on the gauge.

2) Antifreeze is actually not as good a coolant as water; too high a percentage can cause the engine to run hot. For So CA, I aim for about 1/3 (30%) antifreeze.

3) There is more to ignition timing than what the book tells you to set. You should check that both advance mechanisms are working, since they both affect timing where you are having problems.

4) Lean mixture can also cause overheating. My Dad's TR3A had a very persistant overheating problem, that we eventually discovered was due to worn carburetor jets. When the jet wears, it lets the mixture go rich at idle; then when you adjust the mixture per the book, the cruise mixture is too lean.

There's more, but that's a start.
 
Dan -

From an earlier thread, the timing on your car was advanced too far, was it not? Maybe a combination of that and some other issue...
 
I have retarted the timing and no more pinking, power is good I am going out right now and do the flush out
 
The engine block was cleaned out 2500 miles ago (last year) so there should not be much crud in there.
 
To second Randall's #4 above, check your plugs to see their color - may be running lean, which could cause overheating, or worse...
 
this may sound elementary, but is it possible that your temp. gauge is not reading correctly? Maybe you can check it against a known temp. like boiling water.
 
Guage is good. Hot water boiling out the overflow tube. There is some oily film in the water so the head is all ready to come off looking for a blown gasket???
 
Before you pull the head, I'd suggest having it tested to see if it's leaking. My local radiator shop charges less than $20 and the test only takes a few minutes. Or you can sometimes find the test tool on eBay for not much more (I found a used one for about $25 that included most of a bottle of chemical).
https://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Engine-Bl...omotiveQ5fTools
 
OK! I have pulled the head off and it looks good. The holes in the gasket are smaller than the holes in the head at the rear of the head. Could that be restristing water flow? I can trim the gasket out some. But it seams strange that all I did was have the valves done and no other mechanical work. Since the last restoration was completed the TR has run hot, there still is no "smoking gun" Almost at wits end,
P.S. We have our end of month drive this Saturday, hope that I am up and running.
IMG_3735.jpg
 
Were the scrapes in the head gasket there created after you took the head off? If not, then....

(I like to mallet and spikes in the background. Nice touch.)
 
I think that it is interesting that it idles cooler than when you are driving. Could it be that the fan is blocking the air flow, acting like a piece of cardboard or something in front of the radiator, and as a result, raising the temp.
Steve
 
A similar topic came up on the UK TR forum - any chance you had some trapped air in the block?
 
We thought about the trapped air but even after 250 miles we had the same problem. I am waiting for the UPS guy with the new head gasket. I am going to trim out the water passages as best I can and see what happens.
 
UPS just got here!! I am out to the garage!! For a little head install.
 
The thread on the british site, Don Elliot suggested to run it to temp with rad cap off and allow the air to circulate through.
 
I'm guessing a couple of speeding tickets could have accomplished the same thing.
And -- for less than the price of a BMW radiator...
 
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