Hi all

I have no experience with Honda, but my female co-workers 1994 Honda civic with a 4 cylinder just died. I went to pick her up and tried to diagnose.
She said there was steam coming from the hood and shhifter boot...YIKES
When I got there I found no pressure at all in the radiator hoses. Under a closer look I found what appears to be basically what looks like a thermostat housing(except no bulge like you usually see in a thermostat housing) broke off her block. It was hanging off 1 of the two bolts.
Its where the upper Therm. hose enters the block. Two bolts hold it on and the top bolt broke and so it could easily be pulled away. I could pull it away and see the broken bolt stud in her block.

Here are a could pics, anyone know what this thing is?

 

That is the water outlet fitting. There's not supposed to be a thermostat inside. The thermostat on a Civic, like many Japanese cars, is actually in the lower radiator hose where it attaches to the back of the engine near the starter. The screw in the top of the fitting that looks like a brake bleeder is used to bleed the bubble of air out of the engine while refilling the system with coolant.

You would need to of course extract the broken bolt and reassemble it with new bolts. I think Honda used silicone (Hondabond) there instead of having a paper gasket.

Driving overheated until the car will go no more, if that's what she did, almost always means the engine is toast. In that case forget the water outlet and shop for a used engine.

 

Awesome! Thanks so much!
I was thinking that might be the case since the fitting seemed too small for a thermostat.
I'm an American car guy, so its all Japanese to me
Now we will hope she was able to shut her down before any head warpage occurred