Car stays on cold at idle

I have a 1992 Supercoupe and it will stay on cold and not move to norm when it idles. It does move though after you drive the car about 500 ft. What could this be? Bad t-stat, air in the system, temp sender unit? Any info will help me out. What should i check first?

Thanks guys i know SCCOA will help me out

that sounds pretty normal to me. Usually the car has to idle for a long time if it has been sitting for a while before the needle will reach the norm.

Ok it did get to norm and it did take a while but now a new problem...

I just got this car and it seems to be running very rich. I see smoke coming out of both tail pipes. The heads were just done so i shouldnt suspect the head gaskets. Also i noticed it has aftermarket headers with no catilitic converters. If i remember right isnt there a 02 sensor at the cats and one on the exhaust manifold? Please let me know of possible causes of this rich running motor.

thanks

I think if its running that rich it could also cool down the motor to some extent. Perhaps there are stored codes. If the headgaskets recently blew, its possible the o2 sensors were contaminated with coolant and destroyed. They should probably be replaced, likely old anyway.

Hey..

What scares me is that the smoke is WHITE. But it smells like gas at least of what i could get out of smelling it. Are there any other problems that cause white smoke other than headgaskets. I dont want to have my second car in a row fall to blown headgaskets and have it sit till i get the money to fix it.

If you are concerned about coolant, you can buy a kit to run a test for exhaust fumes in the cooling system.

As to the white fumes, under certain conditions excess fuel can cause a gray-whitish smoke. Check for carbon buildup around the tips, and look for any vac leaks. You might also want to have a code check done, this can be done at an Autozone or similar for free.

ok heres what i got....

just started it up and ran fine for 1-2 min with no smoke. so i gave it some gas and litterally had puddles of water on the ground from both pipes, and the white ( steam looking ) smoke was back. I am concerned that if it is the headgaskets that i probably shouldnt run the engine any more due to the possibility of hydrolocking... but i still want to diagnose this to make sure if its the headgaskets or not. do you know where i can buy that kit to check for the exhaust in the coolant or vise versa. thanks... at most i guess i will have to rebuild the engine. but i will never give up... i love this car.

What indicates to you that the car is running rich? Have you seen black smoke?

How long do these puddles of water form below your exhaust, and about how big are they? It sounds more like what you are seeing is condensation burn off in your exhaust system, and the puddles are simply the process of normal gasoline combustion.

Is anything else unusual occuring?

well....

I was thinking that maybe it is running like it is still cold and dumping gas to raise the temp like when you start a car in the winter ( so i thought it might be stuck running rich ), but after reading posts and common knowedge tells me that rich would mean black smoke which i dont have. Well it was about 65 degrees when i started it. Also after i washed the car i would not keep idle. It would go up to about 1200 then after a sec drop slowly past 1000, then 800 then drop alot try to die. So i kept giving it gas but still would go by the 800 then drop off to stalling. I just got this car two days ago so I am trying to look it over. Im not just going to run to the conclusion that my head gaskets are bad. Also I noticed i am low on coolant and oil. Which i will change\top off before i start it again. Also i will check the oil for mixing with coolant. I really cant tell from the dipstick. Also i never let the car get up to norm operating temp... i always shut it off due to the smoke. Should i let it get up to norm then see if the smoke is still there? And like i said before i have no cats.

On the puddles... they were about a foot in length and about 6 inches wide. The ground was just like a puddle. I tryed to smell it but didnt really smell anything. Just like water. Could be condensation. How long would it take for all the condensation to be burned off? And since it has no cats could the pipe be heating the condensation and making it steam? But how long would this last?

But like i said i just got this car.. The guy before me had the fan connected to a switch for the radiator. But i changed that yesterday back to the original fan ( with the 3 wire connector that i had sitting from my 91 parts supercoupe and put it in. Didnt hear it come on yet since i havent let the car get up to operating temp to turn it on.

The past owner said the headgaskets were changed. I can somewhat see this because i have already found one disconnected connector from the power steering pump, and a missing bolt from the power steering bracket. But maybe they screwed up and put them on wrong. Do you know of any common vac lines that are not put back when the top end it put back together. I think there is one but i forget what it is.

But any help would help me at this point. I am going to borrow a compression tester this week and get some numbers. But it looks near impossible to get or even attempt getting a wrench down in there. Any tips. Let me know


Thanks for helping me out... I hope that it is just condensation or a disconnected vac line or connector and nothing more. ( HEADGASKETS SUCK )

THANKS AGAIN,

JAMES GANGEL

jamesgangel; I should have posted this sooner, but I started a thread about checking for replacement of headgaskets.

You can have a look here

james, i would think if the headgaskets were blown again, the temperature would get HOT at idle, not stay too cold. Air in the system would also cause an overheat condition. A bad thermostat could be stuck open so that's a possibility. The temp sender could be bad giving you a false reading...does the heater blow hot air even though the gauge says it's cold? If so i'd change the temp sender first. The O2 sensors (one on each side, the left one is in the manifold and the right one is in the pipe, just below the manifold) should definitely be changed after a head gasket failure , as coolant residue will contaminate them. As for the black smoke/running rich, does it do this on initial cold start, or only after the engine is in 'closed loop' at operating temp? The oxygen sensors have no effect until you are in closed loop so if it does this when you start it cold it's not the O2 sensors. I would suspect a bad Coolant Temp Sensor (Different from the Temp SENDER for the gauge) If the coolant Temp Sensor is telling the computer that the temperature is colder than it really is, the computer will richen the mixture, and you probably would not get a code if the temperature reading is within the 'normal' range. The coolant temp sensor works all the time...even in open loop. I've had 2 other fords that had this problem and that's all it was , and it's a pretty cheep part ...probably under $25.00.

Good luck, hope this info helped.