Thermostat question

[barnesjtsl]

79 Spider 2000

During the summer the thermostate seemed to work fine. The bottome hose got nice and hot, the gage pegged on 190 even in 100 degree heat.

Now that it is getting cooler outside the bottom hose never warms up. Even after a 30+ mile drive. The temp gauge sometimes runs up to probably 200+ degrees.

Took the thermostat out. Heated it up in a pan of water and it opened right up. Put it back in, filled the cooling system, bled all the air pockets out and it is still doing the same thing.

I don't have a splash guard. Is perhaps this not allowing the bottom portion of the engine to heat up properly and keeping the thermostat from opening?

Any ideas?

barnesjtsl

[azruss]

dude, you live in oregon where it gets "sorta cold" and thats for 3 days in february. I drove a spider for 20 years as a daily driver in orygun and it never got cold enough to "not properly heat up". The gage reading 200+ doesnt worry me if the gage is staying steady. If the gage yo-yos up and down, then the stadt is sticking. Are you sure you have your stadt oriented with the valve in the lower radiator line. have you drilled a pilot hole in the valve.

[vandor]

I have noticed on some past Spiders that they seemed to run hotter when the heater was on. Have you been using your heater?

[dmwhiteoak]

Csaba, How could running the heater make it run hotter? If anything it seems it would cool it down as you would be tranfering the heat out of the motor.

[131]

Csaba, How could running the heater make it run hotter? If anything it seems it would cool it down as you would be tranfering the heat out of the motor.

Coolant circulating from the head, through the heater core to the waterpump, bypassing the thermostat!

[dmwhiteoak]

Coolant circulating from the head, through the heater core to the waterpump, bypassing the thermostat![/quote]



Understood

[azruss]

on all of the 124s i've owned (5 of them), they all consistently ran 5 degrees cooler with the heater going.

[barnesjtsl]

Found the problem.

I have the thermostate installed backward.

Thanks everyone.

[AndyS]

If it makes you feel any better, I have been fooling with these cars for over 20 years, and I put a thermostat on backwards on a friends Spider this Summer. My 67 Spider has the thermostat right in the head, and I had forgotten the correct orientation on those external ones. I ended up drilling a small hole in the thing so that it will be much harder for air bubbles to get trapped.