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Cadillac Repair/over heating
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Question
QUESTION: i hvae a cadillac fleetwood with fwd. my car is over heating and i replaced the the thermostat and my fans wont come on. is it a blown head gasket? should i just replace the whole engine?
ANSWER: Hello,
Its kind of a horse a piece. You won't find a good junkyard engine. 90% or more are junk from over heating.
Changing the head gaskets without fixing the cause of the overheating will just make you chabe headgaskets again. New engine is about $4 k uninstalled.
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: i am replacing the pcm to see if the fans will kick on to rule out the blown head gasket. is there any other reason you could think of its over heating problem?
Hello,
You need to understand, you are dealing with an aluminum engine and once overheated, the head gasket(s) blow at minimum. The head gaskets are not the original cause of overheating and are the effect.
There are so many common causes for overheating and the original reason could be as simple as a piece of thermostat or water pump rtv stuck in the small cooling jackets.
I have written so much about these junk engines in my archives. They are a great engine for performance and mileage, but if they run over 230 (W/coolant-212 degrees without) degrees, the engine is self-destructing!
If you have ever seen what happens to an aluminum can in a bonfire, picture that being your engine.
These aluminum engines are not like a cast iron engine where if it is run hot, blowing a head gasket is hard to do.
Plugged radiators, inoperative cooling fans and so many things can cause this engine to overheat, but the overall effect is disaster.
Worse yet, not only are these aluminum engines Cadillac used since 1982, may blow a head gasket, but a block, crack an aluminum head.
Look in the my archives for overheating. Once overheated, rarely worth fixing and as I said all the junk yard engines are junk too!
Cadillac made billions on these engines because of overheating.
Its not how long you can run it hot. As I said it is self destructing every second it runs hot!!!
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Rob Painter
Expertise
Alarm system questions cannot be answered on this forum. These systems are not what I can answer. Without being physically at the vehicle and not knowing what kind of electrical service has been done on the vehicle, there is no possible way to give an accurate answer over the internet. My expertise is in Ignition/key based anti-theft systems. These issues include GM VATS (resistor chip in key blade) PASSLOCK (MRD)-ignition lock rotation based, no special ignition key and the PKIII Transponder (computer chip in key) systems. These systems are not alarm based and are integral with the starting of the engine. This is why I cannot diagnose alarm problems without physically looking at the vehicle: Alarm systems are a completely different annimal than ignition key/lock based anti-theft system. Many alarm questions come from vehicles 10 years old, and since older, many hands that had been involved over the years.I am an expert in all GM factory (ignition/key based)systems. Alarm system questions pose to many situations beyond my knowledge as to what has been done to the vehicle over the years. Some guy may have actually wired the stereo into the alarm system. Who knows? Over my past 30 years in vehicle wiring repair, I have seen unbelievable wiring disaters done by guys that consider themselves "mechanics." I have seen stereos and alarms intalled using surgical tape. I have seen modules burn up, un-fused circuits, wiring jambed between the doors and even lamp cord used for a starter kill. To answer alarm questions over the internet without examining the vehicle is like asking; What does it take to remove a dent?
Experience
Education/Credentials-ASE certified. 11 years with a GM dealer and 17 years with a repair facility dealing with only the repair of theft recovered vehicles.
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