You can run the engine without a thermostat, but it never gets up to normal
operating temperature and you get lots more wear, and worse fuel economy. I
have had a thermostat stick open, winter time returning from Tahoe. No car
problem, except for ice on the inside the windows, and we and the daughters,
had on most of out heavy ski clothes.

"Bowgus" wrote in message
...
A suggestion ... don't run the engine very long without a thermostat ...
even better, don't run without a thermostat at all. One of the
thermostat's
function I've been told is to ensure a relatively consistent engine
temperature preventing parts warp etc.. Having said that, I had a
thermostat
fail closed on a Toyota. I removed it and drove home from ...
interestingly
enough Johnstown near where you're at ... to Ottawa without any apparent
problems.

I am going to try it this weekend with no thermostat and see what
happens. Stay tuned ...

Update on my Volvo AQ240A/280 over heating problems:

Pulled the manifolds, heat exchanger, and heads last Sunday and took them to
town on Monday.

The exhaust manifolds and risers were in pretty good shape except for some
external rust. They got hot tanked in a 3 dip program and came out in good
shape.

The heat exchanger turned out to be plugged with some seaweed. They hot
tanked it and cleaned out the tubes - they also found a small leak at the
filler neck and fixed that.

By next week, I should have everything back together and running strong.

"Jim Pook" wrote in
:

By next week, I should have everything back together and running strong.



Well? What time to you want us at the dock? We'll help you sea trial it
and watch the guages. We'll bring the beer....

--
Larry

You know you've had a rough night when you wake up and your outlined in
chalk.