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I was bleeding air from my Honda Civic yesterday. Everything was going well until the coolant was still bubbling after 40 minutes of bleeding. I did everything correctly. Turned the heater to max, I checked the lower hose temperature by touching it to see if thermostat opened. It was hot.

After that I drove the car around and with a little bit of hard driving and VTEC. When the car was idle in the garage, I noticed the temperature gauge needle was fluctuating and it was between the hot and middle part of the gauge. Could this be the head gasket? Also I don't have any other choice but to drive it in that condition to the repair shop.

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2 Answers2

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Bubbles mean that gas is escaping from the coolant. There are four obvious sources that I can think of:

  1. Air introduced to the cooling system as it was worked on.

  2. Air being drawn into the system on the suction side of the water pump.

  3. Water vapor released as coolant boils due to low pressure in the system.

  4. Exhaust gasses getting into the coolant, possibly due to a leaking head gasket.

Since you've been working on the system the first three seem like the most likely. Check your connections and hose clamps, and confirm that if the coolant is hot that you've got a good pressure cap holding pressure on the coolant, otherwise the bubbles may well be due to boiling. This could also be happening if you've got the cap off to monitor progress or to allow venting of the air introduced when you work on it.

dlu
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It's probably a head gasket. And you can drive the car like that as long as there is coolant in the radiator. Keep an eye on the temp gauge though.

Captain Kenpachi
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