Temp needle stays mainly in cold sector...

I went for a long drive today with my dad and he pointed out as we were cruising along the needle stayed in the "cold" sector, but while in traffic it would move into the warm sector.

Where should be be normally when your cruising along at 40/50/60?

Also not alot of heat comes from the vents (not by the windows on each side but like windscreen and footwell)

Stuck thermostat? How do I fix it? If it needs to be fixed?

Cheers guys

sounds normal - mine runs in the "cool" quadrant below the red overheat indicator light (1800 GTi)

Oil temp runs 88 - 98 sort of range

If it ain't broke ….


MP

Ah ok, I don't know what temp the car is at normally, all I have is a gauge :p

Anyone else?

If you mean the solid lowest portion of the temperature gauge, when you say "cold sector", then this is not normal, its being overcooled and it sounds very much like a thermostat stuck open. Its an inexpensive part so you may as well have a new one ready when you remove and test the old one. They say to put it into a saucepan of boiling water (on the cooker) and see what happens. Bear in mind its also possible it will leak when fully closed.

No, not in the solid bit.

Its:

Solid white for a mm then 3/4mm of black then the 15mm section with the warning light.

Traveling along at a constant speed its in the 3/4mm bit ("cold" sector according to the manual) then when in traffic it moves up to the middle of the larger section ("warm" in the manual), usually to the middle where the fan kicks in.

I'll take a picture when I get a chance

Sounds like it's running cold, probably the thermostat isn't closing properly which will be more noticable in the cold weather. If the cooling system is working correctly the needle should sit in the middle of the range and the temp should not drop when at speed. The needle will move slightly to the right after a couple of mins sitting in traffic and the fan cut-in.

Try a new thermostat (cheap) and coolant. It is worth sorting out as the engines efficiency will be harmed if its runs cold, also you might notice heater isn't very warm.

Cheers

From looking at the manual the thing is at the bottom of the engine by the water pump!?

Full system flush?

I'll see how much the part is

Yes it's a bit of a pain to get at, faces the ground, even worse if you have  a power steering pump in the way :roll: . It's worth flushing system and changing coolant, all the existing coolant will come out when you remove the thermostat.

Cheers

Ok, its only ?5.

I'll get it along with vac pipes tomorrow

Whey hey!

Its fixed!

The old one (probably original) was opening far too early

Hi
I have just read your thread and I was wondering when you started your car in the morning would the autpchoke kick n striaght away or would you have to warm the car. The reason I ask is that I have a problem which is startng to get expensive. When I start the car in the maorning I hae to keep the car ticking over unit it gets warm enough for the autochoke to kick in. I noticed that it does seem to get very warm according to the temp gauge and when you said about the problem you were having it sounded very much like the issues I have been having. So far I have replaced the autochoke and the switches that control them and had the wax stat valve replaced. Does the nice person who suggested how to fix your car got any ideas if this is the same problem as your.

huxley. to start a car with a peirberg autochoke you do the following.
turn key to position 1.
press the accelarator peddle down to the floor and off again (if its really cold do this twice) then start the car. this sets the autochoke to on before the car is started and it should fire up and run at 1500-2000 rpm before settling back to 900 ish once warm. if that doesn't work you need to check the kick down lever on the carb is in the right place (its the little lever above the thottle cam on the left that turns the choke off whilst the car is being revved)

if its not this then maybe time to look at a manual choke conversion.

My autochoke works from the kick off from what I can see.

Press the throttle once before starting then turn it over and it goes up to 2k then slowly increases to 3k.

Touch the throttle again and it drops down to 1k and then slowly makes it way back up to between 1.4 and 1.8k..

Problem with mine is that it cuts off far too early, IE cold solid on the temp gauge and it will idle at 400/500 and progressively work its way up to normal 900ish RPM as it gets warmer.

As for your problem, try adjusting the screw on the front of the auto choke, its a small screw and hard to get to but turn it inwards a turn or so and see what happens. This adjusts the choke butterfly valve, I did mine too much clockwise (3 turns) and it didn't have enough air so it was very lumpy, turned it anti-clockwise back another 2 full turns, got better but still would be slightly lumpy, another half term seems to have sorted it nicely.

Thing is my idle when fully warm (even when it was spot on 2 weeks ago) has now decided it wants to idle 50-100RPM lower  :roll:

Fun and games it really is.

Im going to get the mechanic to do engine mounts as well as mixture, timing and anything else he recons needs doing…