Continued from earlier. Went to start the car and it wouldn't turn over. I recognized why as an overheat shut down :/. I SWORE there would be water in the system so I peeked into the overflow bottle (full) and decided to crack the bleeder valve, expecting water to come out. Nothing! Nothing but pressureized air! I didn't even see steam escape.
That's a neat way to let the pressure off the system safely though lol.
I waited and vented the system through the bleeder valve and opened the radiator cap. Empty. I poured a whole (used to be coolant) bottle of water into the rad, closed it waited a few and started up and made it to work. It wanted to over heat again, so I'm assuming it lost the what, gallon again?
A couple of things to note, when I went to remove the thermostat housing I think I found my original leak, whoever had previously replaced the tstat tightened the top bolt, but only finger tightened the bottom bolt. When I loosened the top bolt the whole housing was wiggling loosely. The system was empty at the housing and the radiator as well. To get my hands in the space I had removed that metal cooling pipe, the one that bolts into the top of the water pump. when I replaced it, I scraped it with a plactic putty blade to remove the sealant and I replaced the sealant with new. Same with the mating surfaces of the housing. I scraped both clean, added a good dose of sealant and tightened both bolts down, and let them sit over night (12hours) before putting water in the system.
