No thermostat......Fred was right

[graham.hilder@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (Graham Hilder)]

A little while ago there was a Digest debate about whether a car
whose thermostat was removed would then run hotter or colder
than normal. 
I think it was Fred d.M. who said it would run hot, due to the
unrestricted coolant flowing too quickly through the radiator to be
cooled adequately. Then a swag of people (including me) wrote in
to dispute this, and claim it would run cold, because of the coolant
flow being greater than when controlled by a thermostat. And a
number of us had actually had this happen in thermostat-less cars.

But now in no.123, Danny wrote :
"I wanted to say thanks to Bernie, Bill, Brad, and Darren for
convincing me to put my thermostat back in. It seems that after
I've bypassed the radiator fan to be on high at all times,replaced
the temp. sensor, radiator, checked for foaming on the oil cap, and
checked the temp. w/another 164L console, that the answer to my
overheating problems was the lack of a thermostat. Without the
thermostat it seemed that the antifreeze was moving too fast to
cool".

So there we are. 
So Fred was right, then. 
As one of the doubters, I'd like to acknowledge this. 

BUT...... I still do reckon I've had several cars (Alfa Romeo, Alfa
Sud, BMC Mini) where POs have removed t-stats and the cars
truly have run cold until fixed.  Maybe the 164 is different from my
examples. Or maybe my recollection is faulty and my examples had
stuck-open thermostats rather than removed t-stats.
But in any event, it looks like Fred was dead right in the 164 case,
and others of us were wrong. 

Best regards,
Graham H,
NZ. (Alfetta, GTV, Alfasud). (No BMC at our place any more).

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