Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

I took the thermostat out on thursday just to see why i was getting no water pressure to the top of my engine from start-up, all the way to when the fan was kicking in. im no expert but im sure this is not right??

so i took it out and it works fine now, nice cool engine and temperature handling (fan cutting and out etc)

so my question is... is there any major long term/short term damage that can be caused by leaving the thermostat out "until death do us part"??

cheers

Personally, I'd buy a new thermostat and fit it. You seem to have identified your problem as a stuck thermostat, so replace it with one theat functions correctly and away you go.

By removing the stat you are increasing the length of time that the engine takes to warm up and so using more fuel. It may also mean that the engine never warms up fully.

as above - get it replaced... imagine on the motorway, your water will get too cold as its full circuit... you'll also have lots of problems in the winter with overfuelling, borewash, and eventually you'll be replacing the engine.

If the cooling system is not pressurising there are 2 reasons. Water not heating up and expanding or there is a leak in the system

The thermostat controls how quickly the engine gets to normal temperature.

Questions

With the old stat in
Did it warm up normally?
Did it overheat?
Did the heater work?

With no stat in it should take ages, if ever to reach normal temperature, I would also expect the heater not to work.

If i is reaching normal temp and the fans kicking then it needs looking at as it is probably overheating

i should have mentioned, i replaced the thermostat and thermoswitch while i was having a top end rebuild a month ago. i had the rebuild because the engine headgasket had cooked itself.

initially i always thought that the thermoswitch/thermostat had failed thats why i had them replaced, but i drove it around 10miles the other day and the temperature rose to about half maybe above at times. before i had the rebuild the engine ran at quarter while driving and rose when stopped. i checked the heater to see if hot air was coming out and there wasnt any so i tried to bleed the engine. thats when i found i had no pressure as water didnt spurt out all over the place like i ws told it should.

the new thermostat which i removed opened up when placed in water just below boiling point.

what im starting to think now is, is there two temperature range thermostats?

sounds like an air lock