horsewhispur

I have a 1995 chev 2500 van high top with 350 v8,at,ac and has 102,000 miles.Last month it suddenly ran

hot while pulling a stock 4 horse trailer with 1 horse in it. I was delivering a horse after it was sold.I heard

a loud bang,sounded like a tire blew,no smoking or steaming from under hood at this point.I pulled

over,with van running and quickly checked tires,no problems there.When i got back in van i noticed the

temperature gauge was almost in red,of course i cut off the engine and called the person i was delivering

horse to.Fortunantely for me he was a bit of a mechanic,unlike me,and saw right off that the top radiator

hose split,and we got 1 at nearby at autozone and he replaced it.After that i was following him to his

house, and it started to get close to red again,so we stopped and added coolant and water.After it cooled

we contineued to his house which was only about 40 minutes from where i 1st broke down.When we got

to his house he thought it best to replace thermostate.It then still ran a little warmer than usual so i left the

trailer at his house and drove 1 1/2 hrs back home and toke van to local chevy dealer next morning.They

replaced the manifold gasket,pcv valve,a 13.00 element, i dont remember what kind,iam looking at the

dealer invoice now.Total was 375.59,and i got it back 2 days later and it still ran hot before i got home with

no trailer,so i carried it back to them and they had a private company come look at it and were told it was

fan.I paid another 287.00 for the clutch fan and iam still having same problem.Iam going to carry it back to

chevy dealer i quess but they dont seem to no whats wrong with it.When it 1st broke down a neighbor of

the guy i sold horse to who is a certified mechanic said it was probably head gasket,or could be manifold

gasket,but he thought head gasket and it didnt crack the block as far as he could tell, because theres no

water in oil and a couple other things he said that i cant recall now.All i can do now is drive it without

trailer and its ok,doesnt run hot, gauge sits just a hair over halfway mark,but if i tow the trailer with just 8

bags of trash to the dump 5 miles away, like yesterday when i get home, the temperature gauge is almost

in the red and i can hear water boiling.I no its going to run a little warmer in summer,especially when its 90

degrees outside but i have had this van 3 years and never had this running hot problem when pulling

trailer in summer before,can anyone give me some suggestions,please? UPDATE ...On 8-01-06 i took van

back to chevy dealer and on the way there i stopped at autozone and bought a 180 degree

thermostate,instead of the 195 degree one, and a bottum radiator hose,i pick van up today 8/03 its still

doing same thing.Before, back on the 1st time when i carried van in,and got it back the ac fan went down to almost

nothing while i was driving down the road with empty horse trailer,so the second time while it was there

for over heating problem they replaced some type of relay or switch which toke care of that

problem,today 8-3-06 while i was testing it by pulling empty horse trailer,i went to turn on heat as advised

by chevy dealer previously to bring down temperature and shortly after that i turned a/c back on,when it

cooled down some then within a minute or so the a/c fan started dying again,i pushed *** over from max

a/c to regular and it started blowing ok again,then i put back on max and it seemed to be ok the few miles

back to house.Just thought id mention that although i dont think it has anything to do with

overheating.Any HELP would be appreciated,Thank you,Paul horsewhispur@hotmail.com

beckeruti

have u had any problems with the transmission

horsewhispur

Thanks for reply!!But no tranny problems,no engine missing or running ruff.Van runs great just overheating.I know my tail pipe is rusted out and my muffler has a hole in it,it makes me wonder if my catalitic converter my be bad and causing this overheating problem?