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Overheating..Stumped

Gregb5220

New member
Hey guys..I have a Chrysler 360 fresh water cooled engine overheating. Just changed the manifolds risers and elbows. Start it up, no leaks but it gets hot real quick up to 220 in seconds. Shut it off real quick, start pulling some coolant hoses to see if is airlocked, sure enough it seemed to be. Seems like all coolant hoses have antifreeze. I Got what seemed to be all the air thru the system, still gets hot, 160 at idle and it keeps going. Here's the odd part. When I give it some more rpms the temp actually goes down quite a bit, and then will go back up again. Nothing is clogged on the raw water side as far as I know, bottom is clean, new hoses to the raw water pump. New impeller last year. Before I changed the manifolds it ran 170 at 2500 rpm. Saw a little steam coming from under each side of both manifolds when I kicked the rpms up. Risers and elbows are cool so it appears the raw water side is good. Mechanic took a quick look said he thinks it's still airlocked, but didn't have much time to look at it as he was going on vacation. Now I can't go on vacation...help!
 
This is probably not the case for you, but I have 318s in my boat, and was experiencing something similar. My gauges were reading wrong. I would start the engine, and it would quickly go to 220 like you say. but If I took an IR thermometer reading of the coolant reservoir, or the heat exchanger inlet, the temps were fine (138 on the tank, and inlet). I changed to thermocouples, which seem to read truer. Also, I found it suspicious that the temp on an engine could rise so quickly from a cold motor. Its probably not your issue, but I would certainly double check around the motor with an independent temp measurement just to make sure.
 
I once had an issue like yours on the first start up of the year. It turned out I had an air leak on the raw water suction side. The hose was clamped tight enough not to leak water, but not tight enough to prevent air from being sucked in. It's a cheap fix: just recheck all your hose clamps between the raw water pickup to the pump.
 
I know this is a old post and I hope you figured it out '
You can try installing a valve in the top of the therm housing to vent the air, Had to install one on a Crusader that was doing the same, air trapped in the system.
 
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