Thermostats / beating this dead horse...again

[<Skybeaver6@xxxxxxx>]

As y'all may recall, I am a new Alfa owner.  My experience with vehicle
maintenance as a Maintenance Officer for a Combat Engineer Battalion with 46
mechanics under my supervision and 230 pieces of covnentional and bizarre
military equipment (ACE, M728CEV, etc...) should qualify my comments for
review...especially since they are non-Alfa specific yet specific to
combustion engines.

  Running a vehicle without a thermostat.

Engineers design engines to run efficiently at a normal operating temperature.
This temperature is moderated by the cooling system, thermostat, fan, et al.  

The utilization of a vehicle without a thermostat should be undertaken only in
emergency situations and not utilized again until repairs are executed.
Comments as to 'I drove my Yugo 3,000 miles without a thermostat and it never
overheated' is poor advice to post as someone is liable to attempt it. (Unless
of course, one was driving to flee a tornado...i.e. emergency)

I am sure that one could bypass the fuel filter and remove the air filter,
drive the car for several hundred miles and comment, 'Drives great'.  Common
sense tells us that you are rolling the dice....your car will eventually
suffer catastrophic failure.

Fred Di Matteo is correct that a thermostat 'delays' coolant so that it can be
cooled in the radiator.  Remember as a kid when you had a bowl of hot soup and
your mom would pour it in another bowl.  Same concept.  The first bowl removed
heat from the soup.

Even if the car runs cool, the engine is not a proper efficiency as designed.

I have made enough field repairs on combat equipment in combat to understand
that hasty repairs are sometimes required.  (You would be surprised what you
can fabricate/repair with a tube of RTV, a bail of lacing wire, and some duct
tape...and these vehicles have performed in sustained combat operations for
days at a time)  But fighting a war and getting home late a night mitigate
such procedures....Driving around for days being arrogant and stupid do not
justify such behavior.

When you elect to sell this vehicle, be sure to include in the ad:  "Low
miles, all records, drove vehicle 3,000 miles without thermostat".  Any
intelligent buyer would pull a Monty Python and 'RUN AWAY....RUN AWAY.... 

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