[05smokecc]

ok ill give you the low down, my 05 titan is overheating but it makes no sense, i have a radiator in it that is about 6 months old and a couple weeks ago i was going up a trail at low speed, which makes sense because there was no air flow to the radiator, but out of nowhere the temp gauge spiked from normal operating temp, to off the chart within a second, and whats weird is that it was freezing cold, there was snow... and had the heater cranked the whole time. havent had any problems since until today. driving home from work in a lot of traffic, makes sense again no air flow to the radiator and it does the same thing. so i turn off my ac and once i give it a little bit of gas it drops just as fast as it climbs, in less than a second. so once i get going about 70 on the freeway, the temp gauge is all over the place hot normal hot normal hot normal...everytime it goes up or down it does it extremley fast. i have a thought that it is one of two things, either a bad temp gauge, even tho when i open the hood it feels really hot, OR a bad thermostat, im leaning towards the thermostat. what sounds like the culprit?

 

[05smokecc]

alright so i changed the thermostat the day that i posted this thread, 2 weeks ago and she has been doing fine until yesterday, started overheating again. same deal, it spikes hot, then spikes back to normal. it almost instantly overheats once i turn on the a/c. ive noticed that the electric fan in the front doesnt seem to be working, but the belt driven fan does, however i dont think that it would make that big of a difference.

one other odd thing that i have noticed is my oil pressure has been on the fritz as well. if its in P or N oil pressure is a tad bit low, but nothing to be too concerned about, but once i put it into drive, it drops bad almost a quarter of the guage...

any ideas anybody, i am completely stumped and dont wanna spend the 120 bucks to have it looked it...is it possible that my new thermostat went out in two weeks and i just need a new one again

 

[05smokecc]

the fan clutch huh? im not really inclined on cooling systems but how would that cause it to overheat? its got 140k

and the oil filter is a nissan oil filter from the dealer

 

[05smokecc]

that was one of my initial thoughts that it was a temp sensor but when i open the hood the motor is actually pretty damn hot, and i have no clue where the temp sensors are and how i would go about testing them

 

[05smokecc]

k, so after takin it apart today and trying to troubleshoot it there are a few more symptoms to report. i checked the fan clutch, no play, still really tight and no fluid leaking as i have read it does sometimes. checked the shaft on the water pump tight, no play. but i opened the radiator cap while it was running to check the flow. there was none, i waited until it warmed up when the thermostat should have opened but you can see where it would try and suck it down, you could hear the rpms drop at this point, then it would come right back up and it would do this over and over again....to me i would think i bought a bad thermostat...? can you run the titan without a thermostat without any issues?

 

[05smokecc]

thermostat is outta the question too...just tested it in boiling water..its good...

 

[05smokecc]

well i put the new radiator in about 6 months ago and had no issues, then it started all this nonsense outta no where...changed the thermostat a few weeks ago and no problems now the problems are back...my dad(which used to be a mechanic) thinks its a cracked head/head gasket because im getting alot of bubbles in my coolant

 

[05smokecc]

havent checked that out yet...but ive heard that it wont happen everytime

 

[05smokecc]

well finally got it into a shop today, turns out it was the most simple thing in the world...bad radiator cap hahahahaha

 

[05smokecc]

well turns out it wasnt the cap, overheated on me again on wed. took it back into the shop and they cannot figure out what it is...time for a new truck