Hi all, we own a 1989 chevy silverado K1500, she has a couple of little problems at the moment, 1 is overheating, we have now flushed the engine radiator and all hoses of the rusty muddy water and sludge which was in her, and replaced Noc sensor, thermostat, distributor pack complete, leads and water pump. can any one think of any other causes of overheating, she only does it under load after about 10 miles of so, and that is sticking at around 45 -55 mph.

The other problem is a lack of power, before the distributor was changed she used to run really well, then last week we changed the distributor pack and leads now she lacks power, the timing has been set to TDC should this be advanced or will this make the overheating worse.

I am my own worse enemy, because she broke down I left her for just over a year until I could afford to put her right, standing through the winter with only water in the radiator (no antifreeze) didn't do her any good.

I hope I can get some feed back we are in the UK and most of the mechanic friends I've spoken to don't have knowledge of US trucks.

 

if you left water in it check for leaks, hoses, clamps, the rad itself, make sure it still has antifreeze and is not leaking, make sure the new thermostat is not sticking closed, and you can get 2 different temp thermostats but neither, (winter and summer one opens ata lower temp at least ion Canada you can), but neither should make you overheat, one will just run warmer...

the lose of power could be any number of things, see if someone can check your compression, check all cylinders, play with the timing a bit, normally I advance mine on everything I have, should not make it over heat, may make it detonate so to speak, if it start to knock back it off.

did you change everyting at once or one at a time and run the truck to make sure everything was ok after each re app.....I find this works best, change one thing at a time, then if something goes wrong , you know where to start.

also the lose of power could be a clogged Cat..(catylic Convertor) if it has one still.

If I think of anything else let you know, is the truck knowcking or anything, does it kickdown to passing gear when you walk on it, or does it hesitate and sputter

1989...is it Carb or Fuel injected, I guessing Fuel injected but cant remember when they changed, around there somewhere..if fuel injected run some injector cleaner through it and possible change the injectors, cuold be clogged and cuasing you lose of power as well, would prolly miss a bit though on a clogged injector.

 

Cheers for that, we did change things one at a time and re-run the truck. We think it is possible that the timing needs to be fiddled with like you said. I will keep you posted David (hubby) is working on the truck again tomorrow.

 

one last thing make sure yuou got hte wires on right again if you changed those as well, if not change them if you upgrade your dist, and things be a good idea to do the wires as well, especially if it has been sitting for a year, PLUGS TO, sounds dumb, but you can have a massive loss of power form bad wires and plugs, to the point you behicle wont run at all