2014 Prius C air in engine coolant circuit

Hey everyone, new to this forum. I have just replaced my Prius C head gasket and after adding all the fluids back, I can’t seem to get the air out of the system. Ive let it run in maintenance mode for a long time and it just ends up overheating (I shut it off before it gets too hot). Still, no cabin heat. I even drained the coolant back out and added more just in case it had a large bubble in it. I’ve tried tilting the car with a jack on both sides, and driving it up on ramps. While squeezing the hoses I get the occasional bubble out of it but really seems like there’s a large bubble somewhere in the system. The hoses do get pressurized once the engine warms which tells me the coolant pump is working (plus, no engine code for it). I’m stumped. Any ideas would be awesome!! It’s so hard to find information on the Prius c.

 

The problem is probably that the engine water pump is bad. You should use a good scanner to check the actual RPM of the water pump.

Are you using a scanner to monitor the engine coolant temperature?[/QUOTE]
Thank you for the reply, I appreciate it. I am using a scanner and monitoring the temperature and I just shut it down when it gets above operating temp. I don’t believe the engine shuts off automatically if it overheats in maintenance mode. As far as the coolant pump goes, do you know of any way to test it? The head gasket went out due to a snapped head bolt during operation. I’m not sure if it snapped due to the engine overheating or if it was just defective (car has 195,000 miles). Either way, I find it weird and unlikely that the coolant pump happens to go out at the same time the head gasket goes out. If there’s any way to confirm it’s bad, let me know before I sink more cash into it! Thanks again!

 

I had another thought I will be investigating soon, just wanted to throw it out there. Before doing the head gasket repair we tried using head gasket sealer as a last ditch effort (I know I know, I won’t be using it again ) since the weather was really cold. I’ve since drained all that crap out and I’m wondering if maybe it clogged the bleed hole in the thermostat, or maybe even the entire thermostat from opening at all. Hopefully this sparks some ideas and I’ll report back with any new info!

 

I’m starting to suspect the same thing. My brother in law put the sealer in and we’re thinking we just used too much by accident. However, almost all of it was washed out of the gap from the broken head bolt. Either way that seems like the only way it makes sense that coolant wouldn’t be flowing. Is there a way to flush the radiator and heater core to wash out this stuff? And do you have any idea where the heater core control valve is located on a Prius C? I checked the thermostat last night, it appears to be working fine with no clogs but I’m going to leave it out when I put the housing back in just for testing purposes. Thanks for your reply! And I will be an active advocate AGAINST head gasket sealer from now on.. lol