thermostats and funky starting rituals

["Paul Irvine" <pi@xxxxxxx>]

On the missing thermostat question:

Sorry folks but I'm going to have to side with Fred on this one. Take that
car with the missing thermostat that never warms up out to the desert on a
very hot day, put the pedal to the floor and leave it there. Even fully open
the thermostat provides quite a bit of restriction in the circuit. Without
that, under the right conditions, you will experience thermal runaway. Under
the harshest of conditions you will experience it even with a fully
functional thermostat installed. Don't be fooled by the benign
characteristics that you may observe casually driving around town. By
removing that very important component you have shortened the operating
range envelope - at both ends.

On funky starting rituals:

Sounds to me like the combined current draw for the starter and cold start
solenoid, probably combined with old cables, dirty grounds, a weak battery,
fouled plugs, worn points or any combination of the above might be a cause.
I've often wondered why no one ever thought of installing a primer and
putting the kabosh on the cold start though it's probably a bit too involved
for most folks.

Paul Irvine  - Antioch CA
72 Spider - 79 Sprint Veloce - 82 GTV6
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Project Alfa - http://www.crl.com/~pi/project
E-Mail - mailto:pi@domain.elided

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