overheating woes

When a kid, around 1967 our ~1963 Valiant wagon slant-six over-heated on the interstate, west of Jax, FL. Some road workers were taking a break and one walked over to help. After re-filling water, he watched in the radiator fill cap and said "no flow, T-stat must be stuck". Removed it in a few minutes and found it jammed shut. Said, "don't need one in Florida" and put the housing back w/o it. Not sure how the gasket still worked, but no leaks and no further problems. Despite what people think, most men in those days didn't know much about cars and rarely even opened the hood. Gas station attendants would look under the hood and add oil (dripping it all over the engine too). My dad later tried to fix things, but was too cheap to buy the right tools and new parts, and rubber bands and duct tape doesn't work long.

My other T-stat failures: I noticed my 1996 Voyager 2.4L ran too cold in the winter and putting cardboard in front of the radiator made it warmer. I found the T-stat was open since the spring stirrup had come apart. Another, my 1984 M-B diesel was running cold in winter (60 C, should be 82 C). I tested the T-stat in a pot of water and seemed to work fine, but went further and used a thermometer, IR gun, and compared to a Mopar one and new M-B T-stat. I found it opened slightly too soon and responded too sluggishly to temperature. With the new one, the engine ran at exactly 82 C winter and summer, and gave a little better mileage. Thus, a quick check doesn't always verify a T-stat. BTW, most Euro car T-stats are different. They regulate the water pump inlet, and simultaneously close a bypass port (bypasses radiator), so the T-stat's are like an alien w/ inner and outer disks.