Thermostat Replacement
If you are viewing this page then the original link to it is down. All the credit for this write up goes to Dominic of firebirdv6.com. It is merely reprinted here for posterity and archiving.
To begin you'll need the following tools, which you may or may not already own:
Socket Wrench
10mm socket
13mm socket (for the EGR bolt)
Socket extension... 3-6" should be fine
Oil/Liquid drain pan
Roll of paper towels
Once you have all of the
following plus your new thermostat, be sure they included a new gasket with
your thermostat. If you didn't get a thermostat gasket (I didn't with mine even
though the salesman told me it shipped with one), you can probably use your old
one from the OEM thermostat, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to pay the $0.50 to
Pepboys for a new one. You'll need one which fits a 44mm thermostat, since that
is the size of the thermostat in your vehicle...
Before we begin, make sure your car has been off for quite sometime and is perfectly cold... NEVER WORK ON A HOT COOLANT SYSTEM... IT IS UNDER EXTREME PRESSURE AND CAN BURN YOU VERY BADLY!
If your car has been off long enough that the pressure is down, then you can continue on with your thermostat swap.
Now we can start
working on the car... open the hood and look to the driver's side of the engine
bay, you'll find a black pipe running from the radiator to a small bell-housing
located on the engine block - under this bell housing is the thermostat which
we will be replacing. You can see the EGR tubing running just over the
thermostat housing, which is all located right near your power-steering fluid
reservoir.
Take out that oil
pan or drain pan you own and slide it under the car directly underneath this
bell housing, when we take the cover off you'll end up losing about 1/2 pint of
coolant, and you don't want that running into the driveway and contaminating
your drinking water...
Once you've got
that setup, grab your socket wrench, possibly a socket wrench extender
3-6" in length, and the 13mm socket. Proceed to unbolt the small black
bolt located to the right of the top of the EGR hose (the one which loops over
the thermostat bell housing... its very shiny and I’m holding it in the picture
below). Remove the black bolt when done, and place it in the lid of your
toolbox so that you don't lose it... Placing a black screw somewhere inside an
engine bay, which is predominantly black, is not advised.
Then, switch over
to the 10mm socket, and unbolt the two "different" 10mm bolts holding
on the thermostat bell housing... the lower one is very long, the top one is
significantly short, so don't mix them up when you remove them and forget what goes
where.
Once you're done,
you can remove the EGR hose partially, and your job so far should resemble
this:
As you can see in
this photo, I have already pulled the EGR hose slightly lose, and removed the
bell housing from the block, exposing the thermostat. It is at this time you
may want to adjust your drain pan to catch all the coolant that will leak...
which is not very much at all in my opinion.
Here is another
view, showing the thermostat:
Take note of the way the thermostat is facing... as well as which way the black gasket is mounted around the thermostat, you'll need this information when you install the new thermostat.
Go ahead and pull on
the thermostat to remove it, the gasket and stat will come out with a slight
pop, and a bit more coolant may leak out, which is fine. If the gasket is in
good condition, and you want to use it, then mount it on the new thermostat...
Otherwise, use the new one you bought from Pep boys on your new thermostat...
the main thing is you want a fairly tight seal so that the thermostat is the
only leak in the loop - that being a temperature controlled one.
Once you've done
all that, go ahead and pop the new thermostat in the block, put the bell
housing over it, snug down the 10mm bolts with the longest one going in the
bottom, and snap the EGR back in and snug it down... Get the bolts snug, but
not "ass-tight" since it doesn't need to be really tight to make a
good seal.
You're not quite done yet =)...
Remember the coolant
you lost earlier... well, we need to put some back in. Since its such a small amount,
I recommend just using some distilled water to top off the radiator... if you
don't know how to properly fill and top off your radiator getting all the air
out of your system, then continue reading... otherwise you're ready to go.
Basically, now that everything is bolted up, just remove your radiator cap and crank the car... don’t rev it or anything, instead get out and wait for it to warm up, keep feeling the hose going to the radiator from the engine-thermostat waiting on it to get warm... periodically watching the temp gauge as it heads towards 160. When it looks to be about 160, the thermostat should open, and you should feel a tremendous amount of heat flowing through that pipe into your hand... it'll be very hot so don't burn yourself. If, at this time, the radiator needs more water, just top it off with distilled water.
I suggest lightly
squeezing the hose watching the radiator *belch* out all the air, every once in
a while press the throttle inside the car to 2500rpm's or so in short bursts to
suck the water into the engine, then add water to the radiator when it goes
down... Continue doing this until the car is warmed up and you can press the
throttle without the water level inside the radiator dropping.
At this time... you
can put the cap on the radiator and go for a drive.