1985-1998 [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
BT - - On two of these cars I've had the thermostat out, on one for a leak, on the other because it went bad. Each had bad corrosion in the square-shouldered recess in the head where the thermostat sits.
I had to scrape the groove hard with a screwdriver blade, around and around, and scour it with something, and there were still a few pits below the machined surface. On the first car the thermostat gasket had gone all hard and I found another at local auto parts store, reinstalled old thermostat.
I bedded it in silicone to try to make up for the pits in the head. The housing only tightens down to flush with head surface, so there's a limit to the squeeze you can put on the gasket, unless you maybe come up with a thin ring of extra gasket to put in the head under the thermostat to allow more compression.
The second car wasn't quite as bad, but showed the same corrosion. Both were '96s with over 150,000 miles at time of repair.
As I recall getting the thermostat housing off with head on car was no picnic. Yours having been apart may be cleaner and maybe easier to work on.
I did a lengthy post on here after first thermostat job, maybe 3+ years ago, with tips on how to remove it. Try some searches and it should come up.
My main recollection is, there's a bracket for the coolant line that hangs right there off the thermostat housing, and it has two M6 bolts that have way long threads and can't be got at with a socket so can't be ratcheted easily. LOTS of setting and re-setting a box end wrench. I replaced just one of them and did it with a shorter bolt, and lubed the threads first and ran it in and out so tightening in situ went easier.
posted by 71.173.65...
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