engine hot, rad cold...bloody thermostat, again!

[jacko]

got to work this moring, 1st time this week (im ill!) and with 3 days until half term.....and the thermostat has died! ffs!!!! this will be the 3rd time iv changed it since buying the car! average lifespan seems to be 20k - 30k miles!!! that cant be right?

got to drive the 20 miles home as gently as possible, heater on full blast and spend 2 hours with a headtorch on swearing at the engine tonight....joy!

 

[Anonymous]

normal night for you then mate lol

hope you sort it!!

 

[pumaspark]

Yes i,ve got the same thing on mine, i replaced it with new ford thermostat and i have refilled the system, ran engine till nice and hot (water did boil abit) but f**K it still will not open.
I had to remove thermostat again as it was just getting dark tonight, then i boiled a kettle and put the thermostat in a glass with boiling water and guess what, it opened and is working fine
So why the **** will it not open when its in the car.
Is it an air lock? i ran the car for a long time with the heating on to see if i could get the thermostat to work. ((( buy the way water pump is fine, i am driving around tonight with out thermostat in.((((((

 

[martinthrapston]

are you putting the thermostat in the correct way????

 

[pumaspark]

Hi Martin thanks for getting back to me i have fitted the thermostat with the little trickle Valve at 12 Oclock postion exactly the same as the picture in the Wiki
Cheers Marc)

 

[jacko]

it only goes in one way....

try the hcv valve....thats what mine turned out to be even tho rad felt cold. god knows how the hcv afects the stat!!!!

but...try putting the stat back in and not letting the car idle below 3k revs....if less you feel the heater blowing hot and cold as the stat opens.....heater control valve ker-nackered! mines good as new. above 3k revs engine will run hot but will stay out of the red...weird!

 

[expatscot]

It's threads like this that make me realise I have a relatively trouble free Puma and the repairs I do need to attend to just now are because a) original components giving up after 120,000 miles and b) I do drive the wee car relatively hard. Mine seems to thrive on abuse and/or neglect.... much like the plants in my living room (except they are shit round bends!)

That said, my Puma does need some major and proper TLC to the front end/suspension/driveshaft areas... still, it could be worse.

 

[pumaspark]

When testing my hcv my heating is red hot and then when i turn it to cold it is cold, this must mean that this is working ok

 

[jacko]

yep....! er!


iv decided mine isnt hcv or thermostat....looks like stat housing is leaking...when car runs low on coolant it overheats...funnily enough! will be having a proper look later in the week and changing stat and aux belt while im there

 

[Hadrieno]

Hi,

I'had got some few similar problems with my previous puma.....

Coolant temps had difficulties to up in temp and after few miles, coolant boil and temp raise to the red....

After changing three times the thermostat (with genuine ford and none genuine, take care some non-genuine didn't have correct open / close temperature). i had check heater control valve too, no problem.

In last solution i take out the heater control valve of the coolant circuit (so, no more heater in the car), to be sure that was not coming from it.

Unfortunately, i crashed the car at this moment and never knew where that came from.

Few month later, i read on internet, that symptoms that i had, comes from...... the coolant pump.....

I had checked it before, no leak, etc...... but the guy explain, that could be some air was entered into the cooling circuit by the water pump......without leak (or more simply, the pump doesn't work sometimes, or working bad)

Another thing : if u want to be sure than thermostats is in good working conditions, put it into boiling water to see if it open / close correctly ; if it is, u'll know that's not coming from it.


Hadrien