running hot?

[allfordspete]

2002 t-bird, 40,000 miles when driving local will hear strange noise in engine area, the can watch temp guage to start going up and then temp. symbol will light up. hit fan control and turn heater all the way up temp instant will go down. engine fan runs,fine. did it today 4 times. no cel or codes set. no loss of coolant. dealer no help, can not dulp. problem at time. anyone have this problem. thanks

[redbirdman]

pete,
sounds like sticking thermostat-not opening all the way.but in an 02 ,heat and noise, sounds like bad hydrolic cooling fan.some 02s had a run of defective hydrolic cooling fans.the good news thermostat-100$ parts and labor.the bad news ,hydrolic cooling fan-1000$parts and labor.had both replaced in my 02 in july 06.if your ford dealer can not find problem,try lincoln
dealer(ls same as thunderbird)hope this helps,
john

[allfordspete]

sooooo!! the dealer replaced both parts because of this problem ? did they find problems with both or just guess it was one or the other? i had a run of the dealer replacing parts till they replace the failed part. then no refund on the others parts not failed. thanks for your answers pete

[redbirdman]

cooling fan was the problem.my bird got hot enough to go in limp mode,so i had them change the thermostat too.
john

[allfordspete]

checked the engine out, found ford tsb on cooling fan. and troubleshoot and check when it ran hot, fan working proper,no noise with unit. so ordered stat and replaced, tested old unit and found sticking. reassembled and ran it all ok, been no problems last two days. thank you for your help. nice to have people with same cars and problems to help out with when dealers just want to replace parts till the right part fixes problem . gone are the days of troubleshooting, just replace parts.

[George]

Please post the TSB number for those who have dealers that say; 'we can't find the problem'. There are so few TBirds around that many dealers don't have enough experience with them and in some cases too lazy to research the info that's available to them, in their own shops.

[allfordspete]

ford #01-21-11 cooling fan inop at times, with codes p1285 and/or p1299 engine overheating.

[George]

Thanks Pete. Hopefully this will help others. There are a lot of dealers out there that have very little to do with TBirds and many don't review their systems to know these things. So the forums allow us to be armed with knowledge.