#21  
Old 07-08-2020, 08:32 PM
ScumOne ScumOne is offline
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Originally Posted by ZeGermanHam View Post
My brother had the same discovery with a 461 he had an engine shop build. Car was chronically overheating, so he thought he'd swap out the water pump. Took it apart and found no sleeves and a single rubber o-ring gasket sitting on the bottom of the timing cover. Needless to say, he won't be using their services again.
The shop that rebuilt my engine for the previous owner is out of business. Based on what I found last night, I can see why. Sounds like they had the same level of Pontiac rebuilding skills your brother's contacts had.

  #22  
Old 07-09-2020, 04:11 AM
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Those are just extra parts, like when you put together an IKEA bed.

  #23  
Old 07-09-2020, 11:02 AM
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Those are just extra parts, like when you put together an IKEA bed.
LOL...right? Tubes with O-rings? We don't need no stinking tubes to connect this water pump!

  #24  
Old 07-09-2020, 11:04 AM
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Keep us posted, curious to hear how the cooling system works once the tubes are installed.

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  #25  
Old 07-09-2020, 11:09 AM
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Will do. The radiator was new 3 years ago, but it's going to have dual electric 12" fans and a custom shroud with flapper valves in it, and a new fan relay. I've got a high volume water pump (billet aluminum impellers), new tubes/orings, new thermostat, new hoses, new fluid, new gaskets...uh...is there anything else besides new clamps left? All because it's missing these two tubes.

Sigh.

  #26  
Old 07-09-2020, 12:53 PM
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Well when you get all that done you will have no idea what helped it if it cools down!LOL

  #27  
Old 07-09-2020, 01:18 PM
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Well when you get all that done you will have no idea what helped it if it cools down!LOL
LOL, that's true, but as long as it stays cool, I don't care. It's not like I took my usual 10 day vacation to Maui this year to play golf and have fun.

Now I just need to straighten out the final tranny leak/crap and maybe I can finally get the Bird into the paint shop.

  #28  
Old 07-22-2020, 10:35 AM
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Ok, so here's the whole deal.
1) No water tube sleeves with O-rings in the water pump. Left a good 3/8-1/2" opening for the water to fall.
2) Flexalite fan relay with adjustable temperature was intermittent. Some days it worked, some days it didn't. You could adjust it, it would work for a few days, then quit.
3) Flexalite 18" fan shroud didn't cover the radiator completely from side to side, leaving a 1-2" gap on each side of the shroud.
4) The Trans Am stacked gauge package had a water temp gauge that reads 18-20 degrees too high. So my 210 reading was actually about 190. I borrowed a manual gauge with sender from the local gauge shop, attached it to the manifold, and ran from manual to dash gauge to verify while running the engine. Have to put a resistor on the temperature sender to get it calibrated to the water temperature gauge in the dash.

Since it was all apart, installed new Flowkooler high volume water pump with new sleeves and 0-rings, new 180 thermostat, new hoses, fluid, etc.

Went to Mattson Radiator / The Fan Man in Santa Ana, CA...had a custom radiator shroud with two 12" SPAL fans, along with a new relay, and AC relay, new wiring.

Put it all back together, it gets up to 210 degrees on the dash guage (190 in reality) then the fans kick on and it cools down to about 190 (172 reality), with the A/C on.

So, basically a complete wipe of the cooling system, better fans, shroud, and finding bad parts hindering the cooling.

$1300 later with parts and labor, it's working the way it should. I'll post pics after the temp sending unit resistor upgrade tomorrow.

Damn, this is fun, isn't it? LOL

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Old 07-24-2020, 04:47 PM
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Ok, looks like the cooling saga is over. With the calibrated temperature sensor the water temp stays right around 185 (thermostat is 185) under city driving with the AC on.

Going to give it a run on the freeway at 75 mph this weekend, and hoping for the best that the new fans/shroud, and water pump do the right thing.


  #30  
Old 08-08-2020, 02:10 PM
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Well, no sooner did I upgrade everything else in the cooling system then the thermostat housing started to leak. LOL

Got a new aluminum housing, gooped the gasket, tightened the crap out of it, and no more leaks.

I swear I'm going to rename this car the Pandemic Pontiac! LOL

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Jim

  #31  
Old 08-09-2020, 04:06 PM
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Finally! Car runs around 190-195 degrees doing 100mph on the I-5, less if I drive 75. No more leaks, runs, drips or errors. Fixed the shifter button, local well known tranny shop effed up the C-Clips, and the shift knob retaining clip while doing the TH400 to 2004R tranny upgrade.

Now, it's time to get the final tranny leaks (dipstick tube o-ring is the suspected leak area) buttoned up, and it's off to paint.

I think I'm all out of repairs (finally!) with this old Bird.

Jim

  #32  
Old 08-19-2020, 02:22 PM
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And that's a wrap, I think. Drove for about 35-40 miles in 100 degree heat on Monday, stop and go, some WOT, and lot of waiting for light to change. The Bird hung around 195 degrees (less than half) the whole way, with the AC on full blast. Nice to see this.


  #33  
Old 01-17-2021, 02:17 AM
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Love the interior in your car had a white 69 w red interior great colors.
Anyway if you don’t have a spring in your lower or upper radiator hoses, do that it’s what caused this on my car. For thermostat gaskets , pretty much all gaskets I use hylomar M best sealer you’ll ever find. Anyway great car.

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  #34  
Old 01-17-2021, 01:20 PM
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Originally Posted by turbo69bird View Post
Love the interior in your car had a white 69 w red interior great colors.
Anyway if you don’t have a spring in your lower or upper radiator hoses, do that it’s what caused this on my car. For thermostat gaskets , pretty much all gaskets I use hylomar M best sealer you’ll ever find. Anyway great car.
It turned out that the water temp sensor reads too high. Had to manually calibrate it with a water temp sensor in another manifold opening, then put resistors in the line to get it too match up to the manual water gauge.

No spring in the hoses, either, still cools just fine now.

Glad you like the car, I just got the TA spoiler and a new trunk lid installed and painted.


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  #35  
Old 01-23-2021, 11:01 PM
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I had the exact same problem and tried EVERYTHING from water wetters buying new radiators and different fans messing with the timing new hoses etc. Nothing worked untill I put in a properly clearanced flow Kooler pump

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  #36  
Old 01-24-2021, 02:58 PM
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Originally Posted by Vckline313 View Post
I had the exact same problem and tried EVERYTHING from water wetters buying new radiators and different fans messing with the timing new hoses etc. Nothing worked untill I put in a properly clearanced flow Kooler pump

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Well, I did the FlowKooler pump, too, but found a lot of other things wrong as well, including the previous owner didn't put the heater core to hose clamp in correctly and that blew off on Friday, stranding me on the side of the road. Had the Bird towed to my Vette mechanic, DB Performance Engineering in Whittier, CA, and Danny (the owner) found the problem and fixed it.

But it was another $200 repair bill including all the Prestone, hose, new clamp, labor. Good thing I have the Premier AAA towing package! Sheesh!


Last edited by ScumOne; 01-24-2021 at 03:05 PM.
  #37  
Old 01-24-2021, 07:13 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Vckline313 View Post
I had the exact same problem and tried EVERYTHING from water wetters buying new radiators and different fans messing with the timing new hoses etc. Nothing worked untill I put in a properly clearanced flow Kooler pump

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk
Ahh you know what I forgot that was also a change I'd made where I took the pump off and bent the divider plate to meet a certain depth from the impeller. Was so long ago I'd forgotten that.
Figured I'd add that because now I remember I'd made that change. Other was my hose collapsing which wasn't an issue at first w new hoses but as they got older they started collapsing only under higher rpms.

Glad you got it sorted out, now when I build my new motor I'll check that clearance for the plate.

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