coolant problemoo...

alllllrighty, well i finally got the engine swap done in my 86 b2000, i put a 87 b2200 2.2 engine in, it runs great other than i need to do a tune up n whatnot. but after a lil while of me driving it, the radiator cap thing starts whistling, and then coolant starts sprayinout of the overflow, oh and i cant figure out where the wire goes to on the engine for my temp. guage. so i cant keep track of my temp. lol. oh and my heat doesnt work. all i can come up with is that its gotta be the thermostat.. yeah? can anyone help me outt. thankss

sounds like the stat might be bad or you never had enough coolant in the system. The heat not working would lead me to believe that the system was low of coolant. Your gauge wire needs to go to the temp sender on the motor it looks like this

images.wrenchead.com/smartpages/partinfo_resize/DUS/E1809.jpg

2.2ltr should have the sensor under the thermostat housing (upper rad hose where it meets the engine) it hangs down facing fowards and the wire on my engine is very taught so it just reaches.
Did you remember to purge the air from the coolant system when you set it up? including turning on the heater (on hot) to get the air out of there too?
Hope this helps.

no truthfully, i dont know anything about purging the air from the system. only my 2nd engine swap lol. and thanks alot with the temp sensor! ill go out tomorrow and check it all out. and it is a good possibility it didnt have enough coolant in the 1st place, i was so eager to drive it lol..

Ive done that myself. threw water in it from the hose and stopped with it came out of the radiator and threw the cap on and off I went.......but I should have filled it, started it and ran it until the tstat opened and filled it some more, then turned on the heater and filled it again

It's easy enough to do, even doing it the way you mentioned will still leave a air bubble somewhere in the line usually, what you need to do is find a coolant point higher than the rad itself on the motor (or as high as possible) (I used the bypass hose that runs to the thermostat housing) and fill the rad to the top, loosen the hose and let the air out, once air stops bleeding out do up hose again and refill rad, bleed air and refill until water comes out from the connection, this removes most of the air as the weight of the water pushing down forces the air up and out, this works for me everytime I need to mess with the coolant system.
Alot of new cars even have a air bleed bolt on the inlet manifold for this reason

wow sweet. ill have to try this. im sure i can figure it out lol. and for the sake of not making another thread, ive been getting some nasty ass exhaust fumes in my cab from the hole for the shifter...i mean bad,lol. what can i do about that? cuz it seems like theres an extra hole in the exhaust manifold that my old engine didnt have, so fumes are comin out of there alot.