thermostat housing orientation

[So Cal Mark]

if you do your final fill through the choke hose you don't need to worry about jacking the car up

[deacon]

Tomorrow's project.......

[majicwrench]

This always begs the question.....did it overheat before the replacement?? Why did you replace it ?? Did you try putting the original Tstat back on??
Keith

[deacon]

The car was a shed find that had sat for 16 years. after I got it running for the first time I noticed that it overheated after a few minutes. I noticed the fact that I didn't seem to have water circulation and after finding hot upper and cold lower hoses I figured the tstat wasn't opening. So the answer is, yes it was and it was acting exactly like it does now after replacing the tstat and hoses.

[bwilson27]

The rubber impeller on your water pump is probably dust after sitting that long.

[majicwrench]

If it did it BEFORE the tstat replacement, and is still doing it, I would suggest there may be something else wrong other than tstat.. Does it build pressure too fast?? Are there gasses coming out of the fill??
Keith

[deacon]

Pressure doesn't seem to be an issue. I have not seen any gases bubble out when running. I am probably just going to go after the waterpump at this point. I will try to determine if in fact the pump is working at all. Thanks for all of the feedback.

[htchevyii]

My '72 Spider was in a barn for many many years. The coolant in the radiator looked just fine, but I'm guessing that where it was exposed to air and aluminum it turned to a nasty yellow solid. This included inside the water neck/t.stat housing and some of the coolant passages in the head. You could try to flush it, but if you've got it as bad as mine did, dissasembly may be required.

[deacon]

I did flush it while I had all of the hoses off and it seemed to clean up pretty well, but who the heck knows what is on the insides. It had crossed my mind that small passages could plug up. I did clean out the t and wherever I could.

[spiderrey]

I just got rid of all that and put a stat in the head and ran 2 hoes. My engine is modified and never heats up. And I run the snot out of it when I drive it.

[MNspiderman]

Here is an example of how my Orientation gets ready for a cold day in MN

[deacon]

An even better idea!

[vespatim]

Hi everyone, sorry to dredge up an old thread, but I wanted to add a picture of my thermostat housing orientation. It looks wrong to me based on the other posts on this thread and I've been having problems bleeding the system, so I took it out and checked it and it is actually correct. In this orientation flow from the lower radiator hose is closed off when cold. So if you have an aftermarket thermostat housing that looks like this one then this is the correct orientation:

(click for full size)

Also note the T-housing on the top left. The temp sender points up, and this is correct because there is no bleed screw and the restricted end points toward the thermostat. Gotta love the first year of FI!

[SLOSpider]

The above pic looks correct for that style of t stat, however the aftermarket ones that have a crooked outlet goes to the lower hose. I confirmed this by the way it operated in a pan of hot water and a radiator hose blowing air through it both hot and cold.

[jcp]

I also bought an on-sale thermostat from Vick's. It's causing me a bit of confusion, as it looks the same as the aftermarket units from IAP and other vendors, but I'm not sure if it functions the same.

Here's the photo of the unit:
http://www.vickauto.com/newstore/images/11-7381.jpg

Right now I have it oriented as suggested earlier in the thread.

The crooked outlet, at the right, on the bottom of the "bell" shape is the one you can't blow air into. It's labelled "radiator". However, when attached to the lower radiator hose, the thermostat never opens, and cool water never flows through. I measured the temperature of the lower hose with an IR thermometer and it stays at ambient temp (80-90F). Meanwhile the upper hose and the water pump inlet are boiling hot.

How should I position this thing? (I have bled the system of air twice, and have a T-fitting installed on the heater hose). Do I have it right? Perhaps there's still some air left somewhere?