I am going to a cooler thermostat and don't really want to drian the system. Does the housing sit high enough on the engine that coolant won't come rushing out? I know I will spill some but I don't want niagra falls.

 

just do the swap in front of your house on the street
thats what i always do. it can easily be done

 

Just buy one of those cheap hand syphon pumps that come with about 5 feet of tubing. Then take off the radiator cap and pump out one gallon of coolant (into a clean plastic milk carton or something similar). That will be enough to be able to change the thermostat.

 

TunedPort350

Thats what I was going to do. I will most likey just spill it in my yard and that will give me an excuse to clean my engine bay a bit.

 

A shop vac also works well for sucking the coolant out. When I did my thermostat I only spilled maybe a 1/2 gallon of coolant, then my brain kicked in and I've been using a vac ever since.

 

just use some hose and syphon some coolant out the rad.

 

y wouldnt u just drain some out instead of going through the trouble of syphoning it? wouldnt be easier to just open the pitcock and drain some into a container or am i just being a bonehead and missing something?

 

Of course you could do that, but it tends to be quite messy and you loose the coolant. If you have good coolant that you don't want to waste, and you don't want to make a mess then you can syphon the coolant from the radiator and then reuse it.

 

Did i screw up or somethin? I didnt drain any fluid when i changed mine. mabey a half a cup came out when i took off the hose but thats it. Then i swaped thermostats and went on my way.

Jesse

 

I've changed it way to many times (4-5) everytime just a little water comes out, and I just soak up a little with a towel and put the new one in. Oil the gasket put it back on and I'm on my way. 4min if my minds on something else. Dont rush it, it's simple - just get the bolts started right.

 

If you completely pull off the hose without draining some coolant it will definately loose more than a half of a cup, unless your coolant level is low. But you probably didn't do that, right? You just removed the hose from where the thermostat housing is and then quickly pulled the hose off and raised it above the upper radiatior hose fitting, correct? That would be why you didn't loose very much, which is good.

Also, Shifty, why are you changing to a lower thermostat? Are you having a cooling problem or do you just want to run cooler?

 

I am going to a cooler thermostat because I am getting a fastchips stage 2 chip. It is only $150 bucks and should give my ECM a little boost to run better with my mods. When I do heads and cam this winter I will have to get a custom one. I am too lazy to wait till until I need a custom one. I am tired of my car topping out at 115 or whatever the hell it is.