the left one is my new one and the right one is the old one im thinking i bought the wrong thermostat?

 

yep the old sbc ones won't work. lt1 coolant flows backwards. one on my left is for a lt1, on my right is a old style small block chevy

 

so my car just overheated and it came blasting out the overflow reservoir which means it either still has air in the lines or it has a leak?

 

maybe (don't you love vague answers)

it depends on what's been done

first, not to oversimplify but it's "plumbing"

you're flowing fluid around and it passes through the radiator to dissipate heat. The water pump is what sends it around. The forward movement of the vehicle or fans pass air through the radiator fans to accellerate heat dissipation

So, even w/o a new thermostat, run without one. A clogged heater core won't cause you to overheat but you can eliminate that by bypassing it.

Fill er up with water and see what happens but if your fans aren't working, but you have the air dam , it should stay around 180 degrees or even lower as you're driving 30mph and faster. (without thermostat)

NOTE: once you button her up, you will need to bleed air and you can even open the bleed screw a little while it's running. That's the most I've ever had to do to bleed and Lord knows I've had that blessed optispark off more times than I care to recall

 

i figured it out guys i had a leak coming from the radiator thanks for the help

 

im having a couple of problem with my car and it just got worse. i am going to start by giving you guys a part list of what i bought. i got a radiator cap, temperature gauge sensor, engine coolant temperature sensor, brand new radiator. i have relays for the fans coming in tomorrow morning. My engine was overheating getting to about 230 240 in the red zone. i bought a pressure tester and i had a leak in my radiator, replaced it and now my engine idles bad and i still have the overheating problem. i thought that having air bubbles in the coolant would make my engine idle funny so i bled the system and it began to idle normally for a while but then the rpms began to rise again. i am also getting a check engine light

 

catch your breath


my mom and dad used to call it "chasing my tail"

in programming it's called an unconditional loop

was the "bad idling" happening before the overheating problem?

If yes, then it's nothing new

If no, then read post #29 in this thread

describe the bad idle. Is it rough like misfiring? If so, read post #29

do you have access to a decent fan?

open the hood and get the fan blowing onto the radiator

if you still have the air dam then you can drive it

plug/fix leaks

verify that you have no blocked thermostat (remove it if u must)

air bubbles will cause the temp gauge to rise very quickly

bleed it

 

the bad idleing just started happening after the install. and its more like it goes to 100 rpmg to 2000rpmg sometimes it stays normal at about 1100 but then goes up about 5-10min later/ im going to leak test it tomorrow again

 

i eamnt service engine soon light