I have question about radiator cap. My car has shown overheating on the temperature gauge last week. I touched the radiator hose and engine they were both hot.

within 6 months :

New radiator
New Water pump about a month ago

So what happened is, I filled up my reservoir tank full and it leaks. This I know because of over filling. So it's been dumping out the coolant and sits at close to min line and close to full like when the car is hot. I bought a new radiator cap today and it was 16 psi and replace it. Now my car temperature gauge sits at half or sometimes a little below half. It just go up and down between those two I mentioned. Is this normal?

In the manual it says RADIATOR CAP 11 - 15 ..... Is it ok to put 16 or I have to go buy in between 11 - 15 ?

One other thing I notice, My stupid retarded knowledge about car makes me open the radiator cap to check the coolant. From what I believe that when the radiator still hot, I'm not suppose to open radiator cap because hot boiling coolant will be like water fountain. The weird thing is, it didn't have that massive pressure when I opened it. The coolant just stay in there and looks hot. Can this be the sign of something bad?

PLEASE HELP...THANK YOU VERY MUCH

 

forgot to mention that It's a 420A engine. THanks

 

lol im out...have no idea about engines that come in cracker jack boxes...LMMFAO..JK

 

You touched the engine and radiator hoses and was surprised to find out they were hot? Wow.

 

Also... how does coolant look... when it "looks hot"...

 

Well, the manual taught me how to check if the temperature good or bad by touching the engine and radiator hose. Yeah, it comes out of reservoir hose when it's hot, but it hasn't done that so far because the I kept it on the right level now.

I was just curious about the effect of putting 16 psi radiator cap when the manual listed that stock eclipse non turbo's radiator cap read 11 - 15 psi.

Also is it normal for for the temperature gauge sit on half or a little below half?

 

coolant looks green when it's hot.

 

Half or a little below isnt bad for the gauge.
Last I checked... my coolant was green regardless of temperature...

 

Dusty, stop being an *******.
The guys trying to learn something here and you're not helping.
Coolant can look hot... its called steaming.

Dookitchen, how many miles on your car?
One thing you need to have done is a Coolant Pressure Test.
Any shop can do it, and should for free.
It compresses the entire cooling system and then you check all the hoses, water pump, intake manifold, resevoir, and anywhere else coolant travels.

If you're losing coolant, you have one of 3 problems.
1.) Leak somewhere that can be found by pressure testing
2.) Coolant basically vaporizing in the radiator b/c the fans are not coming on.
3.) Coolant in the motor.... i.e... blown head gasket.

 

It doesnt seem to me that anything is wrong anymore, JOsh... hence me being worthless. He said it WAS overheating and he replaced the cap. Now it runs normal range. Maybe it wasnt THAT hot when he opened the radiator cap. Thusly it didnt do the "fountain" effect. Everything else really seemed normal to me...