overheating problem
 

not sure if i posted in the right thread, if not forgive me as i'm new here.
i have a 99 3.8 liter and about a month ago it broke the belt and ripped out a sensor when it flapped around. my girlfriend was driving and called me saying the power steering went out and she continued driving about 30 miles then she said it was overheating. turns out the tension pully locked up snapping the belt.
replaced the pully and the sensor and have had no problem out of it until today when i look down and see the check gauges light and the temp rising quickly towards the red, it never got into the red and i stopped. but it would get hot and cool down the whole trip home. i bought a thermostat on the way and when i went to put it in to my surprise there wasn't even one in the housing. went ahead and put it in then i bled the air out of the system with the valve on the thermostat housing and it still wants to overheat. i know the heaters in these cars put out really hot air but mine is just warm air and when it starts getting near the red i hear churning water that sounds like its coming from the middle of the dash and a surge of really hot air then the temp goes down really fast which leads me to believe its the heater core but the core has not leaked a drop inside or out so i dont know for sure.
when i bought the car a year ago i noticed that when i was going uphill or sometimes when kicking down to pass the heat and air would basically stop blowing out any air until i topped the hill and the rpms dropped then it would start blowing again. i have also noticed today that i have a white goo underneath the oil fill cap with a little condensation but when i put my ear down to the filler reservoir it sounded like someone frying bacon in a skillet, don't know if there are large amounts of water in the oil or if a few drops fell in when i removed the filler cap. haven;t had a chance to change the oil yet and see what it looks like but if anyone has any opinions as to what may be the problem please let me know. i'm considering just bypassing the heater core and see if it still overheats but even something that simple looks to be a tricky situation since the clamps toe the core are so far back in there.
just hope she didn't blow a head gasket, intake gasket or crack a head when the belt broke and she kept driving for a good thirty miles. it would be my fault since i told her to drive with no powersteering not even thinking the belt may have broken. 30+ miles with no belt.....GEEZ, that couldn't have been good on any of the old girls innards.

How does the oil look on the dipstick? Does it look normal? Some cars get condensation in the cap from changes in temp. When you are filling and bleeding the system, did you have the heater control turned to the hot position so to coolant could flow through the heater core? If not, good possibility that you trapped alot of air in the system. How hot did the engine get on the 30 mile ride? That seems like an awful long time to run with overheat condition. Does your fans come on when the temp gets above normal?

Oh and welcome to the forum!

oil looks fine on the dipstick and i got roughly 2000 since last change so it's not fresh looking but it is a little thin, no signs of water that i can see.
i had the heat set to hot and fan at max blowing through the vents. she said it didnt really get all the way into the red but i don't see that being true considering she was on the interstate doing 70+. the fans kick on like normal and i also replaced the temp control sensor.
i'm gonna dump the oil in a couple days so i'll know then of it does have water in it.

thanks for having me here and thx again for the prompt reply

You may need to flush the system and possibly back flush the heater core if you are hearing the gurgling sound under the dash. It may have restricted flow going through the heater core. Also, the check guage light, what is the oil pressure when it is energizing? When you check your coolant, after filling it, is it low the next time? If you are concerned about the head gasket, get the system pressure test to see if any exhaust shows up in the test.

yes when i fill it it is low the next time i check. the oil pressure jumps around alot. how would i go about back flushing the heater core? thats something i've heard alot about but have no personal experience with.

Flushing the heater core is just a matter of taking the heater hoses off the heater core up next to where they enter the firewall and using a garden hose to push water through it in both directions. Hardest part is getting the clamps off and back on.

If you are loosing water and have no visible drips or leaks and have a good radiator cap, then you could have coolant leaking into the cylinders and being burned. Are you getting any white smoke out the exhaust? Is the car missing? Is the coolant recovery tank lid blowing off or is it overfilling?

When our head gasket blew, we would loose about 1/2 gallon of coolant a day and had what looked like condensation comiing from the exhaust. Not the trail of white smoke that some cars show when the blow a head gasket. Then the car started missing really bad. Turned out we had a cracked head and a bad headgasket.

no white smoke and the car is running smooth without a miss. when i fill radiator and let it run with cap off it sucks coolant down and i keep adding but then it blows a large amount back out, if i cap it it blows out the recovery tank lid. but i can only get about a gallon of coolant in the radiator and i thought the capacity was more than that...actually the hoses to the heater core feel like they don't even have anything running through them when i squeeze them and let go i get nothing like when i do the same to the radiator hoses. then the radiator makes an awful noise like a chunking sound and kinda vibrates...i dont know. it got dark on me before i could bypass the core but tomorrow i'm going to try the core backflush and see what i get from that. if i cant remedy the situation i guess its off to the mechanic.

Ok, one other question, when you are bleeding the system, you are bleeding it when the engine temp is warm enough to open the thermo, right?

yes, i let it warm up to about 210 and open the valve but i thought you were supposed leave the valve open until you get coolant seeping out which i haven't seen happen, it makes its hissing noise and every now and then kinda mists out some coolant but then just goes back to hissing out hot air. this is a first for me because usually my overheating problems always consist of replacing the thermo and its fixed. but with all the churning , clunking sounds coming from the radiator i'm lost. the car has 131,000 miles and doesn't leak a single fluid anywhere. and i found out after i got the title that the car sales man lied about the title and sold me a flood damaged car after asking a dozen times if there was anything on the title.....that caused me to have to replace the ecu...i've had 4 of these cars now and its all i've driven forthe last 10 years but this one has been the problem child out of the whole bunch.

any idea why its just barely holding a gallon of coolant when it should be around 3 i believe? gallon after gallon is hurting my wallet