radiator problems

[brian-pat91-318]

i replaced my water pump and now my cars overheating. to get the old pump out, i had taken the radiator out. i remember unpluginh these 3 wires that go on the side of the radiator, a green one a black one and a brownish one. 3 little wires. on the passenger side of the radiator. what are these wires? i may have put them back in the wrong order. couold that cause the car to overheat?

[doitover]

That's odd, normally those three wires would be in a plug that connects to the temperature switch. It is part of what controls the aux fan in front of the radiator. You probably want to reconnect that but more than likely you are overheating due to not having completely bled the radiator.

The procedure is something like this,

With the engine cold, fill the expansion tank to the cool max line.
Turn the ignition to on with all of the heat controls set to max heat.
Open the bleed screw. It's the circle with the X in it to the right of the
expansion tank.
Fill the expansion tank until nothing but coolant comes out of the bleed screw.
Close the bleed screw.

I say it is something like this as I haven't successfully bled my own at this point.

[aj_mckay]

The procedure is something like this,

With the engine cold, fill the expansion tank to the cool max line.
Turn the ignition to on with all of the heat controls set to max heat.
Open the bleed screw. It's the circle with the X in it to the right of the
expansion tank.
Fill the expansion tank until nothing but coolant comes out of the bleed screw.
Close the bleed screw.

It helps to have the car with its nose pointing up-hill to help coax any air bubbles/pockets to the front of the engine and into the expansion tank so they can escape.

The M42 engine often gets an air lock in the heater matrix too. To easily expel this you can loosen the top hose that goes through the bulk head to the heater matrix and bleed the system from there.

[xwill112x]

just park it on a hill, and rev it while the bleed screw is open,

you'll be good to go

[E30_80Y]

i replaced my water pump and now my cars overheating. to get the old pump out, i had taken the radiator out. i remember unpluginh these 3 wires that go on the side of the radiator, a green one a black one and a brownish one. 3 little wires. on the passenger side of the radiator. what are these wires? i may have put them back in the wrong order. couold that cause the car to overheat?

I am having the same problem with those 3 wires. the housing that it use to sit in, is totally deteriorated. so it's the green, brownish, and black wire hanging. Can someone help us with the order it's suppose to plug in please? :confused:

[DesktopDave]

I'm not sure which direction your switch is facing.  I posted a few pics of mine taken from the passenger side:



Looks like the wires are (left to right) Black/Brown stripe, Green, Black.  I couldn't unplug the connector to find out what the orientation is.  Please clarify if you figure it out.

[E30_80Y]

I'm not sure which direction your switch is facing.  I posted a few pics of mine taken from the passenger side:



Looks like the wires are (left to right) Black/Brown stripe, Green, Black.  I couldn't unplug the connector to find out what the orientation is.  Please clarify if you figure it out.

That is perfect!! WOW thankz for the prompt response, now i'ma head to garage and give it a try! I just found this forum yesterday and i think it'll be my main E30 forum from now on!

[DesktopDave]

Absolutely...we're great.  Seriously, this board is a great resource for a great car.  Whatever chassis, E21, E30, E36, E36/7 (2002, Locost, any more?), you can't go wrong with the M42.

While you're messing with the cooling system, you might want to read this thread:
http://www.m42club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2742

Bleeding the system properly might be trouble too...haven't been there myself yet, but there are a lot of threads dealing with that.