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Ford ThunderBirdFord thought they'd take their own stab at the nostalgia business. There are quite a few last-century icons that wear the blue oval. For a revival subject, why not use a car famous enough to have been the subject of Beach Boys songs, starred in George Lucas movies, and has been gone long enough to be missed? Why not indeed. In 2002, the Thunderbird was reborn.
I have a 94 Tbird with the V8. My car starts to overheat climbing any sort of grade at freeway speeds. But the strange thing is, as soon as I stop, even idling at 100 degree plus outside temperatures with the AC on full blast, it cools right back down again. It only heats up as I'm driving. Any ideas? Was thinking maybe a stuck open thermostat so the coolant is going thru the radiator so quickly that it can't cool, or the radiator may need to be replaced or have a rod out. Someone told me potential head gasket *ugh no way I'm doing that job*.
I had a fairly similar problem with my 89' Firebird. The "air dam" under the car was broke up and no air was blown against the radiator to cool it. At idle and in town the load wasn't great enough to overheat the engine. Thats one place I'd look.
If you remove your thermostat you can check it in a pot of water on your stove if you use a thermometer. I don't think that is the problem you are having, but it could be.
Get ready for the 351 boss build this summer, 4v closed chamber heads, 2.25/1.75 valves, .750 lift, 12.5:1 piistons, wieand tunnel ram, nitrous, I think its gonna roar!
I had this exact same problem with my '97 Tbird, and the problem was a very simple, but not obvious one (at least in my case).
If you live in an area where you have a lot of cottonwood, for example, but even just collection of airborne dust and debris will, over time, clog the vanes on the radiator. It's not obvious when you look at it, because this debris (especially cottonwood) packs itself well into those little vents.
In a SAFE condition (including being sure that the fan won't kick in), the solution was to CAREFULLY (so as not to damage the radiator vanes) spray the radiator from the rear side forward. This will blow out whatever debris is packed into the radiator and blocking air flow.
Once I did that, my temperature under climb or load went WAY down and right into the middle of the normal range.
You may still have other problems, such as a thermostat problem or an internally clogged radiator, but this is a cheap (free) option to check out.
It worked absolute wonders for me.
(BTW: climbing a hill could run my temp up into the red after as little as one block, depending on the grade, but would drop to normal a block later...)
I had this exact same problem with my '97 Tbird, and the problem was a very simple, but not obvious one (at least in my case).
If you live in an area where you have a lot of cottonwood, for example, but even just collection of airborne dust and debris will, over time, clog the vanes on the radiator. It's not obvious when you look at it, because this debris (especially cottonwood) packs itself well into those little vents.
In a SAFE condition (including being sure that the fan won't kick in), the solution was to CAREFULLY (so as not to damage the radiator vanes) spray the radiator from the rear side forward. This will blow out whatever debris is packed into the radiator and blocking air flow.
Once I did that, my temperature under climb or load went WAY down and right into the middle of the normal range.
You may still have other problems, such as a thermostat problem or an internally clogged radiator, but this is a cheap (free) option to check out.
It worked absolute wonders for me.
(BTW: climbing a hill could run my temp up into the red after as little as one block, depending on the grade, but would drop to normal a block later...)
I will try that today. I live in southern California and spend alot of time driving up in the high desert so I'll certainly give that a shot. To a previous post I did check the air dam and it was in good shape so can rule that one out.
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1994 T-bird strange overheating 
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