Bleeding with just water, 88c t-stat

[Knoepfler]

I'm attempting to bleed with just running distilled water and a bottle of water wetter but all that ends up happening is the car gets hot and starts shooting steam from the bleed screw. I usually shut it off at the 3/4 mark.

Occasionally it'll spurt a bit of water but usually just a bunch of steam and hissing. I feel like the water is boiling in there and not really moving. Kind of has me nervous about how hot it is getting.

Any thoughts?

[Fusion]

Sounds like there's not enough water in there. Sometimes it looks like there's enough in the exp. tank, but you need to top it up so that the weight of the water pushes out almost all air (fully opened bleeder, cold engine). Then when you bleed with the engine on, you should get bubbles from the bleeder, keep adding water, and wait until only water streams out of the bleeder, then close it. There will be a point where the thermostat opens up and you'll probably see a drop in coolant level, fill up, bleed, close everything, should be ok.
If unsuccessful, repeat again after the engine cools down.
Why are you not adding coolant to the mix?

[ck_taft325is]

What's your procedure you're going off of? Jacking the car up, etc? What motor? What radiator? Tested the thermostat in a pot of water that you bring to a boil and with a meat thermometer see if and/or when at what temperature it opens?

I bled my system in about 1 hour from cold to blazing hot and cooling itself adequately.

Jacked the car up on the expansion tank side only. Slowly filled reservoir and turned the car on. Heater on full hot, blower on the highest setting. Periodically topped off the coolant as the car started "eating it" into the system. I had 2 massive air bubbles that where preventing the circulation through the block and solved it by giving the top and bottom hoses to and from the radiator a good squeeze now and again. Left the cap off of the radiator reservoir the entire time and watched as it burbled for that entire hour.

[Knoepfler]

Not using coolant because water is more effective/cheaper/some tracks don't allow coolant.

I'm jacking up the expansion tank side, and filling it up till it drops down and then keep filling etc.

It's an obd1 m52, and known working t-stat. m42 rad.

I've bled this car's system multiple times with a regular coolant/water mix, it is the JUST having water that is giving me troubles.

I feel like the car is so hot once the t-stat opens that it doesn't have that much longer to go to boil the water and make all that steam and hissing. By the time it comes out the bleed screw it is so hot that it starts pulsing like it is gonna geyser from the rad cap (and does sometimes) and blows tons of steam from the screw.

[Adrian_Visser]

Coolant serves a very important purpose in a cooling system. It prevents corrosion. One thing you can do is pump the rad hoses by hand to get air out and coolant/water in alternate covering the cap and return hole while squeezing the hoses and releasing to pump coolant into the system. You will notice that the level in the reservoir goes down as you do this. You can also drill a small hole in the t-stat, re-install with the hole in the upwards position. I used the tip of the up arrow on my t-stat as a guide.

[Fusion]

--------------- Pure Water ----- 50/50 C2H6O2/Water ----- 70/30 C2H6O2/Water

Freezing Point
--------------- 0 C / 32 F ------- -37 C / -35 F ---------- -55 C / -67 F

Boiling Point
-------------- 100 C / 212 F ------ 106 C / 223 F ---------- 113 C / 235 F

The cooling system uses pressure to further raise the boiling point of the coolant. Just as the boiling temperature of water is higher in a pressure cooker, the boiling temperature of coolant is higher if you pressurize the system. Most cars have a pressure limit of 14 to 15 pounds per square inch (psi), which raises the boiling point another 45 F (25 C) so the coolant can withstand the high temperatures.

Antifreeze also contains additives to resist corrosion.