The heat on my 145 wagon has sropped working. One day it rocked the next it stopped. Plus the temp. gague, which was always a little funky, is ridding really high, it's all the way up. It gets hot very quickly. I checked the radiator collant in the resevoir thinking that ther wasn't proper fuild cooling off the engine and circulating to bring me heat. The resevoir was empty and I topped it off. But it didn't take much fluid. But the problems persists, along with white smoke after only several minutes of driving. So any thoughts on what to check. It's way cold up here, and heat would be nice.

thanks

1) The resevoir can't be used to refill the system when it is very low. It can be used to top it off if there is fluid still remaining in it however. If it gets really low you have to take off the cap on the radiator and fill it from there. The symptoms of no heater heat and a hot gauage all support the 'low coolant' theory.

As for the 'white smoke' - is this out the tailpipe? If so the coolant is making its way into the cylinders somehow. Most likely this would be from a leaking headgasket - B20 heads are hard to warp or crack unless (I guess) brutally overheated. If the 'white smoke' is steam coming out from the hood area it could either be the engine overheating from low coolant level (see filling procedure above) or possible leaking out somewhere, though that usually won't cause a lot of steam.

JohnMc. I did try and open the radiator cap and put fluid in there. But again it wouldn't take a whole lot of liquid. It was alsmost as if it was backed up. But some did go down into a large hose that ran off of the upper radiator. Plus the white smoke is coming from the radiator. I guess I'll try to toss more fluid in there tommarow.

thanks