Amazing overheating problem...desperate

ogden lafaye said
This is a jumble of answers and descriptions....

-No, no bubbles...head gaskets are not leaking...once the heat is normal, this truck runs all day and night flawlessly...It is 26 years old and ran flawlessly for 25 years. I went 14 years without any major repairs.
-YES, pushes water out of overflow tank then bunches of hot hot steam
-Add 3 quarts of cold water to hot radiator and gauge goes down to normal and everything is OK for the rest of the day.
-Gets savagely hot first 3 miles, EVERY morning. EVERY SINGLE DAMN MORNING FOR 3 months...intense problem for almost a year now...I am going mad and insane. Off and on for 12 years, now it won't go away.

Well, you got the "jumble" part right. That was very hard to read, bordering on incomprehensible.

Instead of jumping around randomly, think about what is different between engine cold and engine warmed up. For one thing, when the engine is cold the coolant path is through the by-pass hose and the heater core. If the coolant can not circulate enough to warm the thermostat the thermostat will not open and the engine overheats. You need to be absolutely certain coolant is circulating when the engine is cold. That means test, not guess. By-pass the heater core if you have to to see if the symptom changes. Normally the hose nipples on the water pump from the by-pass hose and the heater hose should warm gradually as the engine warms up before the thermostat opens. If not, there is no or not enough coolant circulating.

I watched a tech got nuts trying to diagnose the exact same problem on a Fiero. (Yes, I know.) On that car the engine would get hot on a cold start. If you shut it off, waited, then restarted and repeated that three times enough heat would soak into the thermostat to open it and it would be fine the rest of the day. If the thermostat was removed the problem would not occur. The only by-pass path was through the heater core and it was mostly blocked. It would put out warm heat but not circulate enough coolant in a cold engine to avoid a overheat condition. See? The cause may not be obvious.

If the head gaskets were leaking cold you should get misfires and steam out the exhaust on start-up, one would think. Or you should see coolant in a cylinder when pulling the spark plugs on a cold engine and pressure testing the cooling system. I don't see how a fan or fan clutch causes a overheat on a cold engine when no coolant should be circulating through the radiator. If the water pump impeller was slipping when cold the problem would have been corrected by the replacement of the water pump.

Use a logical process. Test, don't guess. You will get it sorted. That's all I have for now. My brain is overheated.