Hello all,
I know that the "What degree thermostat should I be using?" question has been beat to death around here. But this time I really want to look at it from a different angle. I recently got done replacing virtually every part in my cooling system except hoses to and from the heater core and the core itself. Radiator, hoses, water pump, sensors, and checked the fan out. So now it will run in town in 100 degree weather with the ac on and barely get to the halfway point on the gauge. However, in this process I stepped the tstat down to a 160 degree unit - which didn't help at all when I did it. But now, all is fixed even in hot weather and in cold weather (50-65 degrees ambient) the gauge never get's above the line by the 'C'!
So the question is this - are these symptoms possibly caused by the low tstat? If the gauge is barely lifting off I would think that the system isn't getting to 160 degrees where the thermostat is a factor. At any rate, I do plan to go back to the stock tstat or at least a 180 tstat but after reading about "sludge" problems due to running too cool I'm not sure which. So is it possible that the tstat is at fault here, and which tstat should I aim for to keep cool yet not frigid temps?
I know that the "What degree thermostat should I be using?" question has been beat to death around here. But this time I really want to look at it from a different angle. I recently got done replacing virtually every part in my cooling system except hoses to and from the heater core and the core itself. Radiator, hoses, water pump, sensors, and checked the fan out. So now it will run in town in 100 degree weather with the ac on and barely get to the halfway point on the gauge. However, in this process I stepped the tstat down to a 160 degree unit - which didn't help at all when I did it. But now, all is fixed even in hot weather and in cold weather (50-65 degrees ambient) the gauge never get's above the line by the 'C'!
So the question is this - are these symptoms possibly caused by the low tstat? If the gauge is barely lifting off I would think that the system isn't getting to 160 degrees where the thermostat is a factor. At any rate, I do plan to go back to the stock tstat or at least a 180 tstat but after reading about "sludge" problems due to running too cool I'm not sure which. So is it possible that the tstat is at fault here, and which tstat should I aim for to keep cool yet not frigid temps?