ok, well it doesn't loose coolant, never have to add any, even after a month or so.

they re-filled it after flushing it.

I will have to do more work on it myself and see what I can do.

Were you ever able to initially get rid of the rushing water sound from the heater core? If so, then the loss of coolant would be what caused the sound to come back. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

well, yes, I did have it pretty good, but then when I took it somewhere to get tranny flushed, they did an all encompassing inspection and popping the radiator cap to check the coolant was part of it, and after taht, it started the sound again.

my point is, I have never had this problem with my two other 97 monteros.........this one is extremely sensitive to 'getting air' in there or something else is to blame......I am just not sure anymore.

wouldn't a power flush machine get all the air out? they did that and it still made noise.

No.

To get rid of the headgasket fear I would have the system pressure tested.

where is best place to go for that?

The best would probly be the stealer. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> May be costly though. I was looking at Harbor Freight last night and they have a kit to do it yourself. I don't recall how much but I would like to have one.

fwiw

i looked more closely at the overflow bottle, it wasn't as dirty as I thought, the reason the bottom of the tube was hitting the bottom was b/c it was just a tad too long; this bottle was a mitsu ordered part, but wasn't the original one that came with the vehicle. maybe it was just a tad too long and it was suctioned on the bottom of the bottle and that is what was causing the lower rad hose to collapse when cooling.

I snipped off a little bit if the drinking straw to give it room to breath without getting suctioned.

now I just need to get this noise taken care of in the heater core..........I will keep trying to get the air out. coolant looks clean right now, but like was mentioned, over course of several weeks, it gets dirtier I think b/c it is still rubbing off the inside of the block, core, and radiator.

any high grade professional cleaners I can put in it to run it for a few weeks to assist in the breaking up of the crude that forms when green and orange are mixed?

that is my only hunch that makes sense to me; green mixed with orange coolant.

no amount of driving in the desert sands or mud bogs and neglect to cooling system could have added up to amount of crude that was or still is in this system. it would have been better off if the owner never touched the coolant in 10 years compared to what the poor thing is going through now.

a few months back, I was able to get one of the engine block plugs out of the passenger side of the engine. when I pulled it, nothing drained at first b/c it had a wall of caked up ***** behind it; had to poke it with a small screw driver to break it up and let it drain.

i was unable to get to the driver side plug b/c I broke my tool on the passenger side plug it was so tight, LOL.

at any rate, thinking about that caked up crap behind the plug, I can just imagine what is throughout it all.

looking for high grade commercial quality cleaner, all I could find so far is prestone stuff.

I wish I could remember what I used. It came in a white qrt size container with a handle. Got it from advance and autozone. It was good stuff. Sorry I can't be more help <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

I think a cleaner and repeated flushes over time will fix it eventually. Does the heater core make the sound with the cabin temp control on cold? Doesn't that stop the coolant flow through the heater core?

Was it Holts? They have many products for cleaning a radiator and flushing the system.