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Other than running the heater are there serious implications with running without a thermostat?

Florida,

One school of thought is that without a thermostat, the coolant roars through the radiator much faster and heat transfer is reduced. I don't know if this has been proven or not...the thermostat will keep the engine at the proper temperature for better overall performance. I wouldn't run without one.


Stuart.


Stuart.

Your going to overheat the engine. Cecil........

Particularly in winter your motor will take a long time to warm up.
It's not good for your motor or the oil to run too cold for extended periods.
I had a thermostat get stuck open a few winters ago and there was a noticable difference in how the motor ran, not to mention it never warmed up enough for my heater to be of use.

And you will get crappy mileage in the winter.

i always assume the engineering team that comes up with ideas like putting in the plumbing to support things such as thermostats, did it for reasons which would give me a headache to try and figure out all the implications of eliminating them would no doubt bring about.

thanks Guys,

Beings there are different temps involved with different thermos any input on best op temp for
'67 250 ?

wintertime and cold, thick oil are not as much of
a problem here in coastal Florida as up north I would guess...

we only had a light frost here once all winter last year...brutal heat is more a factor than cold I think maybe...

180 is what I run here in Arkie land, feels like Fla all summer,,hot & humid but no ocean breeze. Brian

165 here in southern ca.

i always drill some 1/8 inch holes in the edge so if it sticks closed it wont damage the motor but will come up to temp.

Interesting idea. A lot of the F**d products of about the same time era had a little bypass hose. I always wondered what would happen if the thermostat would stick in the closed position in an AD truck.

i saw a nice rig burn a motor because the stat stuck closed boats in salt water are worse and outboards i pull the thermostat and run with out iv had to pull them out at sea when they fail

From my experience I don't think it will do any harm to not use a thermostat. I have a 57 buick and have problems with it overheating. It would take forever for the motor to get hot enough to open the thermostat. The thermostat would finally open, and the heat gauge would immediately drop back into the normal range, but then it would soon close and the cycle would start over again. Too hot, cool, back to too hot and so on. I now realize I was using the wrong thermostat, but my solution was to just do away with the thing. In the summer the motor would go to normal operating temperature and stay there, and in the winter, if I wanted to drive it, I just put a small piece of cardboard in front of the radiator to block the air flow to a small portion of it, and everything worked fine. I have done this for a long time with no problems. I realize this is a Buick not a Chevy, but the principle should be the same. Allen

There is no thermostat installed on the 51 chevy firetruck's 235 engine. Did all trucks come with one? There is no defroster/heater on this truck either. From the firewall layout, it appears there never were heather hoses going through the firewall to the interior. So given all that, do I need a thermostat and what tempature should it be if I need one?

Thanks for all your help. I love getting the input from the experianced stovebolt users. It saves me money and time!

You need a thermostat on a 6 cylinder engines to equalize the wear across all 6 cylinders. If you don't have one the front 1 or 2 cylinders will run too cool and wear egg shaped faster than the rest. This is due to the position of the water pump.

Ok. I'll put one in. What tempature thermostat should be used on a 2 ton 1951?

Back then it would have been a 160 or 170.