no pressure in my coolant hose.

[jaspur76]

Ok, first off I gotta say, I bought this car looking for a beater with a heater and it is anything but that. Got my hooks into a 96 ssei with 137,000 miles for only $1,000. Gave my buddy who is a great mechanic $500 to give it a good once over and replace the driver side front wheel bearing, flush the radiotor, fluid changes including the super charger adn replace the idle,tension pulley. Once thing we noticed is that the coolant hose exiting the radiator is soft and there does not seem to be any pressure in it. He did a leak check and put 14psi?? in it and it held pressure. One thing to note is that the fluid was the worse he has ever seen. He did a thourough flush on it but will probably be doing another one this weekend. After that it is in my hands and I will do what little things I can on it and learn as I go. I am pretty green as a mech. goes. The cap on the radiator is in bad shape. No over heating. Temp runs about 200 and then at idle kicks up to 225ish before you can see the thermostat kicks in and drops it back down. Any ideas on what to look for or what could be causing the lack of pressure in the hose? Any advice is appreciated. Oh, by the way, these cars are nice, I am in love with it. To think I was looking as p.o.s. cars for the same price. Thanks for any info or tips you can offer up. To often I see problems posted without the solution posted by the person asking. Whatever I find to be the problem I will surely post it.