View single post by Tom Bradley
 Posted: 05-20-2014 12:57 am
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Tom Bradley

 

Joined: 07-15-2013
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I went out and looked at the spare water pump core and thermostat I had sitting around. I stand corrected. The water flow will definitely not be correct without that thermostat. This is a weird design.

When I had trouble keeping my engine temperature down it mostly happened when the car was not moving. So I guessed that the problem was not enough air flow through the radiator by the plastic fan. Putting a shroud around the fan did not have much effect. Re-coring the radiator, first to the standard two rows, then to a three-row also did not help much (I did not do a thorough check with a temperature probe as you did). I got an electric pusher fan from Delta and that fixed it well enough so I did not have to worry. For a while I also had on a front spoiler, but that did not seem to make any difference at any speed and made it more difficult to get over speed bumps, so I eventually took it off. Turning on the water flow to the cabin heater also reduced the engine temperature somewhat, though this is not a very comfortable method on a hot day.


My oil pressure when idling was also getting scary low, so some time later I also replaced the oil cooler hoses and the oil pump gears. That was the change that made the most difference in temperature overall. But as I recall, replacing the gears was a fairly difficult task.

I am not sure why your gas gauge never gets to either full or empty. Perhaps someone replaced it with something from a different car? As long as it is working I would not mess with it.

Hope this is of some help.

Tom