froggy47

Theoretically we can end world hunger/poverty/war, buts thats theory.

A thermostat is a dumb temp. sensing device. It gets hot it opens, it gets cold it closes. Mostly it's wide open except for cold winter days when the engine doesn't need much help to stay cool. Where I live, San Diego, that's never.

So unless you live somewhere where you drive down the road & the ambient goes from 100 deg. F to 20 deg F every 4 or 5 miles your stat is going to stay in one place (generally wide open) until the engine is shut off & cools down. Got it?

TEXHAWK0

Looks like we have a runaway post on our hands with the thermostat debate.

In the mean time, Hope you can keep driving your car with no more cooling problems for awhile....

97C5driver

HAHA I have been thinking the same thing.

Thanks for all of the help. Im very happy that it seems to be cured. hopefully it will stay that way!!!

ptindall

[QUOTE=TEXHAWK0;1560250772]Looks like we have a runaway post on our hands with the thermostat debate.
QUOTE]

No, I think it's over. Nobody wants to argue with me anymore.

FLACHUSNRET

I figure I'll put my 2 cents in this debate. I don't recall watching my temp gage in my '02 roadster long enough to determine if the thermostat is cycling but I know for a fact if you watch the temp gage on my 92 Ford Ranger truck you can see the temp gage moving slightly up and down as you drive. I had an 87 Ford Aerostar back when it was new and it always did the same thing.
Based on the theory that was posted in post #40 if you were to remove your theromstat completely then your engine would continually get hotter until it overheated. I cannot agree with this thinking. Removal would only cause the heater to not work properly and cause the engine to run at lower than normal temps.
Regarding the theory that the coolant would be flowing thru the radiator too fast to cool off, you must consider the converse in that it would be moving just as fast thru the engine. Unless you introduce some additional super heat producer within the engine there is no way the engine will continue to increase its temperature. It is a simple law of physics related to the number of BTU's produced by the engine and the amount of airflow thru the radiator.
The primary reason cars now have electric fans rather the old mechanical belt driven fans is that when an engine is idleing in traffic it is turning at low RPM's which would result in low air flow from a belt driven fan. The electric fan can produce maximum air flow while car is sitting still thereby providing the required air flow for proper cooling.

That's my 2 cents!!!

fr0stb1t3

As I said earlier, in my experience (which admittedly is only on much smaller closed systems) it can be too fast to "pick up" the heat, and to cool it back down in the radiator. The engine continually outputs heat, which makes it get hotter, the water is taking this heat but is not cooling down at all. When the water gets back to the engine at say 220, and the engine has more heat it's trying to rid, the water gets hotter, then the water comes back at 225... and so on, and so on. Eventually the engine will overheat as the water is no longer effectively removing the steadily increasing heat.


Now, I do not know if on a corvette the pump is even capable of moving water fast enough to cause this "run away" problem. But in my own experience on much smaller systems, it can happen.

ptindall

Okay, the removal of thermostat debate is a whole other debate that has gone on probably since the first thermostat was installed in a car. It is a different debate than a stuck open. Why? Because I have argued that a stuck open performs exactly the same as a perfectly functioning system when a cooling system is running slightly above normal operating range. And since we know that a perfectly functioning system will not have a runnaway train effect, I think that proves that a stuck open also cannot result in a runnaway train effect. Nobody has yet told me why I am wrong about this. Therefore I thought we were done with this debate.

Now onto the thermostat removal debate. I am much less sure about my position on this one than the stuck open, but here it is; Theoretically, the faster you move the coolant, the better. Because all you have to do is remove more heat through the radiator than the engine is making. That means the hotter the coolant in the radiator is, the better off you are because the higher the temp difference between the inside and outside of the radiator, the more heat will radiate. Yes, the coolant will reenter the engine at a higher temp, but it will also spend much less time in the engine soaking heat. The faster the coolant moves, the more it will balance the temp of the engine and radiator, correct? And that's the whole piont of a cooling system, to take the heat from the engine and loose it through the radiator.
Now, in the real world, people remove thermostats why? Because their overheating for some reason! Nobody is going to take one out of a perfectly functioning system, so everyone who does to try to fix an overheating problem says, "that didn't work." But removing the thermostat may indeed cause overheating. But's it due to some other factor. The lack of backpressure could cause the pump to barely work at all. Or when the coolant picks up speed with no backpressure, it causes the pump to cavitate and not pump any coolant. The concept of moving too fast to cool down is bogus. If you believe that, you will have to explain how the radiator is radiating more heat than the engine is generating, and the system is overheating at the same time. If that were true, we would have solved the world's energy needs simply by taking extra heat generated by systems "flowing too fast."

z06Bigbird

I put my money on thermostat. You can squeeze upper hose for pressure vs water. Also, take $40 to Harbor Freight. You can buy a laser temp sensing unit. Takes temps of various parts of engines in seconds. I just bought one, but I have not used it.

VRROOOM2

Follow-up to this thread in my situation...

I changed my cap and have had ZERO problems since doing so. Mine was the F-150 doing the bubbling out of the overflow tube and on out of the overflow reservoir. I changed the cap two weeks ago and no problems since. The truck was not overheating and still does not and coolant is at the proper level.

I never thought it was the thermostat because it was heating up properly and not at all overheating, so I tried the cap. Easiest change to make and only $5.00 for a new 13lb cap.

97C5driver

Exactly!!! who knew a cap could cure such a problem. Chevy didn't, and i filed a BBB complaint and chevy sent me a check for the $50 they ripped me off.