1997 Pontiac Grand AM

My car has been overheating,a friend of mine said it needed a new thermostat but when he tried to replace it he said there was no thermostat in it.he then tried to flush the raidiator saying it had to be clogged. well now that the raidiator is flushed my car wont hold any water or antifreeze, it all runs right to the ground and i cant make it a block without being smoked out of the car. what could this be?

did you tighten the petcock.or did you check to see if you had a bad hose.or a leak in radiator.so you need to check to see were the leak is coming from.some people will take out the theromsat if the car was running hot on them.before you bought it.you will also need to put the thermostat in so you will have heat this winter good luck rob

Simple; put water in it and see where the water is coming from: there’s your leak. Possibilities are: upper and lower radiator hose, heater hose, heater core (your interior would smell like coolant if this was the case), thermostat housing where upper radiator hose connects, radiator, radiator petcock, or the freeze plugs in the block (unlikely, unless your friend REALLY messed things up).

Most people don’t realize this, but you can actually CAUSE overheating problems by not running a t-stat. Always run a t-stat.