under-heating

[Indiana_Red at hotmail.com (Ken B)]

Yup.,  I have done this on a different car that I had to drive a few hundred
miles in the dead of winter.  My problem was a stuck open thermostat that I
fixed later.  It happened to be a <cough>Toyota<cough> but the idea was the
same.

Ken
'79 Scirocco 16V "McFly"
"81 Diesel P/U

----- Original Message -----
From: "T. Reed" <treed2@wsu.edu>
To: <scirocco-l@scirocco.org>
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2003 12:02 AM
Subject: under-heating


> After adding water and a good 10 hour charging session, my battery was
> fine for the 300 mile trip home. I'm gonna monitor it for the next few
> days and determine whether or not to replace it (I probably will to be on
> the safe side since I live out in "the boonies").
>
> But I encountered another problem once I got going-- the car was stuck in
> the "cold zone".. the white stripe at the bottom of the temperature
> gauge. Even after 30 miles it refused to heat up.
>
> I pulled over at the next town (100 miles from the departure point) and
> went to the supermarket there and asked for some cardboard. Took it
> outside and used a flathead screwdriver as a box cutter to make a
> rectangular cardboard panel that was half the width of my radiator.
> Installed it in front of the cooler side of the radiator (the battery
> side) and drove away.
>
> That did the trick; the car warmed up almost to the halfway mark - it
> finally stopped chugging gas like crazy and started blowing warm air in
> the interior (which was nice since it was 20 F before..)
>
> Why did this happen? Well, I think I drilled my thermostat out too much.
> IIRC I put two ~3/16" holes in it this summer out of frustration back when
> I was fighting the air bubbles inside the cooling system.
>
> The lesson is- drilling holes in the thermostat makes it behave like a low
> temp thermostat. So don't go nuts. And the second lesson is that cardboard
> in front of the radiator is a good way to (at least temporarily) get your
> car to run warmer. Especially when you're at highway speeds and the
> radiator is kickin' ass at its job.
>
> -Toby
>
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