Damn Hondas... D15b Thermostat

[Mr Revhead]

Who knows for certain where the stat is?
is in the front housing, or is in the rear one?

Haven't got the car with me and last time I looked at it I was doing the ignition module so can't recall where the thermostat was.
Need to know if its a 2 minute I can rock up and do, or if it's more than that as I recall the rear house to be in a prick of a spot for my man hands

[Nuty|Mike]

if its the same as my d16 its up behind the head above the g/b

oh and yea prick of a spot for man hands (even worse on mine cos its got a massive cvt trans)

[Mr Revhead]

Arse. Cheers

[Mr Revhead]

What a prick of a place to put the thermostat!
Might put the stuck open stat back in, that way it will continue to hide the cracked radiator

[RS13]

Gonna hijack your thread with a similar issue..

Got a 1992 Pulsar with GA15DS. Temp gauge gets to 2/3 up the gauge then stays there no matter what you're doing, and the antifreeze/water boils out the top of the radiator after a long idle. Top rad hose gets very hot, lower only slightly warm, and the fans don't appear to run. Antifreeze is relatively clean, hardly any gunk in the system, radiator doesn't appear to be blocked as water flows through cleanly, and no BHG symptoms. New water pump last year.

I took the thermostat out, and boiled it. It has 76.5 degrees stamped on it, however when I boiled it, it only began to open a couple of seconds before the water boiled hard, and only opened about 2-3mm. I'm going to assume that they're meant to open far more than that, and that the restriction of only partially opening would cause my hotter indicated temps and the engine side to boil over?

Has anyone had a thermostat fail closed before, with these symptoms? I'm hoping the temp switch for the fan is one of the ones on the lower radiator hose end (rather than on the dash temp gauge circuit which seems to work properly) therefore as the lower hose never gets hot it wouldn't trip the switch to turn them on?

[Lloyd]

They fail both way. Put a new one in and see if it fixes the problem

[rollaholic]

one cool hose is a good sign of bad thermo. most nissans will switch the fan on if you unplug the switch, so thats an easy way to check which sensor it is.

though its mostly likely on the head somewhere

[RS13]

Yeah, finally got around to putting a new one in. The temp gauge still sits a little high driving around (maybe 3/5ths), after sitting idling for a bit the fan comes on, temp drops down to 2/5ths and both hoses get hot, so I'm going to assume that the problem is fixed and that the gauge reads a little high. Gonna take it for a blast up the hills tomorrow to be certain!

Cheers guys.

[rollaholic]

gauge shouldnt really deviate far from half way at all.

this might sound a bit odd, but is the fan blowing in the right direction? that is, pulling air through the radiator from the front of the car, not blowing warm air from the engine bay out the front, if that makes sense

[RS13]

gauge shouldnt really deviate far from half way at all.

this might sound a bit odd, but is the fan blowing in the right direction? that is, pulling air through the radiator from the front of the car, not blowing warm air from the engine bay out the front, if that makes sense

Yeah, my thoughts too. The fan blows fine.. I'm beginning to think that maybe the radiator has a little crap in it, but the lack of sludge anywhere, good flow of water through and clean coolant doesn't really point to that, also the car only has 108,000km and has been well serviced. Water pump was replaced recently, so that, plus new thermostat, new coolant and good radiator.. only really leaves the sender and gauge itself?

I've had blocked radiators many times before, any load would send the temp flying up, but this won't budge from slightly over halfway when hot regardless of what I'm doing.