help my baby is overheating!!!!!

[dre422]

My 95 caprice started shooting coolant out of the resevoir cap one night. my 1st thought was the thermo changed it 3x, not it. changed the res. cap, not it. so i took it to a shop. they said i had a crack in my head gasket( great) wanted to charge me $200 to put in some k&n block sealer(did it myself) that stopped the coolant shoot prob. but my temp still goes up more than half way. I can drive on the hi-way and the temp is fine, but if i drive slow it starts to go up. takes about 20-30 min (that was when it was cold out now it takes just a few min) is that really my prob or could it be something else (radiator maybe) car only has 104k on it & i dont drive it to hard. also was told ( after the fact mind you) that the k&n block seal was not the best idea.

[myersfw]

I don't know about the block seal, but I do know that the LT1 is a warm blooded beastie. Running in stop and go traffic in North Dallas last night in 80 degree weather, my temp gauge runs in the 220 degree range. Not overheating, but it sure seems hot to me. A few of the guys in the car club who also run LT1s say that theirs do this too.
Someone told me that GM set the operating temp that high to keep emissions down... Sounded like :bs: to me, I will say that I am not a big ofan of reverse flow cooling. I will be going to an aftermarket fan/switch set-up.
Good Luck Dre -

[dre422]

My temp gauge doesn't display #'s it just has an offsetgauge with the normal bracket siiting at a little angle to the left so I can't really tell what degree it is at. But it used to sit at about the 1/4 up mark now it stands staight up & down in the city. My girl started it up the other day and she said within 10 min it started heading to the red at idle speed.:no:

[van94lt1]

your fans arent turning on. mine used to do that, so i just installed a switch to turn them on/off. now i just wait for my car to warm up and then flip the switch. mine would overheat in the city, but be fine on the highway. also the block sealer isnt all that bad. but headgaskests arent hard to do. the only downside to the block sealer is that it clogs up the water pump and all the little parts in your rad. if you wait like a week and get your gasket nice and sealed with it i would do a rad flush or two to get all the excess gunk and crap out of there. then youll have nothing to worry about

but i am pretty sure its just your fans. this sounds exactly like what my car did.

[ricksterlt4]

my lt1 had the same issue before i overhauled it. The water pump seal went out it and cause me to overheat one day, in fact it fried the optic spark too. that's when i decided to overhaul the motor and put some well needed parts into it. I to put a switch to turn on my fans on too. cuz my fans wernt coming on. rebuilt the motor and put a 160 stat in it. this way i knew the new motor was going to overheat. got the motor in and worked out some kinks. the temp. gauge would still say it was running hot but motor wasnt hot. i i statred changing sensors, started with the raditior,next the water pump.one by one i changed and tried... nothing. i changed the temp sensor in the head. worked for me and now i don't need the switch. car never gets passed the quarter mark highway or in town.

[myersfw]

The LT1 has 2 sensors, one in the head, which drives the temp gauge, and one in the waterpump face, which drives the PCM, including the fans.
You might try swapping relays. Turn on your A/C, both fans should come on. Visit www.shbox.com (http://www.shbox.com) for other details to check out your cooling system.