Stupid previous owner rant

Hey,
My golf has not been keeping a consistent temperature, especially when driving on dual carriageways. The gauge would drop down a fair bit. Some days it wasn't as bad, depending on the weather and my driving style.

So I came to the conclusion that I should replace the thermostat. I was reluctant because I didn't want to disturb the bit of silicone sealant oozing from the thermostat area. I figured the job had probably already been dome badly by a previous owner, but at least there is probably a newish thermostat.

How wrong I was. Took off the two bolts, and started to scratch my head. There was NOTHING there. NOWT at all, except from a bit of rust and skanky silicone. No wonder my car would cool down on the dual carriageway, definitely didn't help my economy! What a gammon!!!

So, pleased that I had found the problem, I installed the new thermostat with some tiger seal… I joke, I used the proper gasket for 50p from euro car parts!
I then went to tighten up the bolts and found one thread almost completely stripped!! Some people just shouldn't work on cars. Luckily a new slightly longer bolt held. It will probably need a helicoil when I have time.

[/RANT]
Cheers
Rob

good and fair rant mayn car dont have thermostats in them

i dont want to course you any alarm but previous owners normally remove the thermo stat for a reason but i pray that yours was a simple reason

Agree with JB. Good news it's in place now mate. Hope all goes well with it.

Smudger

Yeah I really hope there's not a good reason that it was removed. It seemed fine on the drive though. Got up to temperature, and the fan kicked in as the needle got just over vertical. Its had a new temperature switch on the rad recently too by the looks of things. Maybe this was faulty and one previous owner thought it was the thermostat so removed it, and the next owner replaced the switch? Its had 2 other owners since the engine was changed.

I'll let you know how it acts tomorrow!

Urgh, think we should make this a sticky for everyone to rant about dodgy things that have been done to their cars by previous numpties! My escort had its springs cut, then they must have decided to reeled a small bit of spring on as it was too low!

Found this rattling about in the dash too..

Is that left over from the Cyprus conflict with Turkey

Nope, probably just left over from the dodgy villager who used to own it

Aha not just me then!

Rounded nuts and bolts, silicone sealer, cut and taped wires, nothing done up tight/correct torque settings. arrggghhh

The list goes on and on…………………

I take my use of superglue is perfectly acceptable though

E

I've had some awful bodges on cars but the scariest is the items left behind. The last was a couple of bags of whiteish powder hidden behind the gear gaitor … The one before was a couple of dozen shotgun cartridges in the rear storage

h4rri said

I've had some awful bodges on cars but the scariest is the items left behind. The last was a couple of bags of whiteish powder hidden behind the gear gaitor … The one before was a couple of dozen shotgun cartridges in the rear storage

Haha, the powder sounds a bit odd. However, it wouldn't surprise me if every car my brother sold had a shotgun cartridge or a rifle round lying around somewhere!

Car now operates at the correct temperature.. just need to get the fuelling sorted. Hopefully EFI is on the horizon.