Hey everyone,
help me out with this please. Radiator in my daughters Bravada smelled like hot antifreeze. Checked it out and found a hose clamp on the water pump loose and antifreeze getting by. Drained the antifreeze and it was dirty, put clean water in it and let it run and drained it again. Put new antifreeze in it and started it up. Temp guage got hot real fast. Like it kept climbing till I shut it off. When it was running I checked the hoses to see if they were warm. None of the hoses ever got hot. Not the upper or lower hose, not the waterpump hose or the heater core hoses either.

What's going on? It was fine before, just had a small leak and when I fixed it, this happens. Should have been a straight forward fix. Any thoughts on this?

 

Sounds like you have air in your coolant system. Its causing a blockage not letting the coolant circulate.

 

Thanks Andy, how would I get the air out of the system?

 

Air in the cooling system is common in newer cars. I usually have to jack the front of the car up so the radiator is the high point, fill it, and run the car for a while to get all the air out. Even if the temp gauge goes up, continue running but keep an eye on it. It usually comes back down after the air is pushed out.

 

I will put a jack under it and lift it way up, start it, and see what happens. I really appreciate the input. Thanks alot!

 

I did what was suggested and jacked it up and ran it. The guage ran to the hot side and eventually went back to normal. It's running good now, thanks for the advice. I learned something new, never heard of air getting trapped in the system before.