Engine temperature fluctuates in Dodge Spirit

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cudajim

cudajim

cudajim
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I have a friend with a 93 Dodge Spirit (Yes, I know it's not an A-body) with a 4 banger in it. The temperature gauge fluctuates while driving. It goes from 3/4 hot to almost cold. I have changed the thermostat, no change. There seems to be plenty of flow in looking in the radiator and the car is not overheating. It has a new head gasket too, there was a bad spot between #1 and #2 cylinder. It runs perfect now and does not seem to be running hot.
 
My Dads Acclaim did this after 100'000,...don't know why,....never physically overheated,...
 
You getting good heat out of the heater? Does the heater output go warm/ hot/ cold as follows the alleged engine temp?

Beg/ borrow/ steal an infra-red handheld instrument
 
There should be a pipe plug on the top of the thermostat housing. It uses an allen wrench to loosen it enough to bleed the air out of it.
 
There was a factory bulletin that involved drilling a 1/8" hole in the thermostat so any air trapped in the head can self bleed.
 
From 3/4 hot to full cold sounds physically unrealistic, even with an air bubble. I expect it is an electrical problem. The Car Talk guys would say to fix it with black tape (cover the gage). I hope it doesn't have the 2.2L I had in my 82 Aries. Mine got a bad head gasket leak (oil in coolant), which was common in that engine, and one reason you rarely see a K-car on the road today.
 
cudajim said:
I'll check but I don't recall seeing a plug.
Click to expand...

I have never seen one without a plug, and I've probably owned nearly 100 cars with the 2.2-2.5 engines in them. Doesn't matter whether it has a turbo or not, that's why 66CudaFormulaS recommended turbododge.com for information on the purge procedure. Lots of 2.2-2.5 knowledge there.
Also drilling an 1/8" hole in the t-stat as 69MOPE mentioned is a good idea.
Dallas
 
Ok, so I finally put a pressure tester on the radiator and it did NOT hold pressure. It turns out there was a leak in the radiator so I replaced it with a new one (about 100 bucks). The heater was also not working well so I removed the hoses, flushed and back-flushed the heater core several times. Lots of nasty stuff came out of it especially the first time I back-flushed. I now have a normal HOT heater, good and stable engine temperature and no fluctuations. I also do not smell any anti-freeze. The car is finally back to normal now.
 
Thanks for the update. I always like to hear the solution to these type problems. IIRC, temp fluctuations were fairly common on these cars. Glad to hear you got it fixed.
Dallas
 
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