Radiator replacement

so took my car for a blast and got home to the engine bay steaming and the radiator pissing coolant everywhere, so figured i need a new radiator, took thermostat out and tested it and it wasnt opening, ive left it out (is this safe enough to run with no thermostat???) car isnt overheating and still sits at temp. so how hard is it to change the radiator and anything i should know about doing it?

Thanks in advance

Running without thermostat will just mean takes longer to get upto temp .

yeah im just gonna replace the stat after some info ive heard, got a japspeed radiator on order now anyone used one of these before?

No thermostat will run cold aswell, after 5 miles the temp gauge will sit on the cold mark, not a good idea realy

Gaz GTiR wrote:No thermostat will run cold aswell, after 5 miles the temp gauge will sit on the cold mark, not a good idea realy

But won't cause any long term problems .

No just engine & oil will never be up to optimal working temp, So not a good idea to drive it hard

prob run too hot after while cos theres nothing holding the water back in the rad so hot water just runs around the system not cooling. had that on my landy.

the thermostat isn't just there for cold starting. it restricts the flow of coolant in the system so the coolant passes through rad at a slower pace therefore giving the fans the time to cool it sufficiently before its pumped round the system. if you remove the stat the coolant will stay cooler for a limited period but once it gets up to running temp and beyond it will quickly boil up in the system as the fans wont have time to cool it when it flows through the rad

so not a good idea to remove at all contrary to what people believe

fair enough ,, never had problems in the past running my diesel vectra with no stat

Maybe its a vauxhall thing rob lol i never had one in my astra diesel that ran for 3years admitly i did have the heaters on most of the time though .....

i used to do 150/170  miles every day in it     monday - friday ,
Think i did 60,000 miles in it like that

you wont have a prob driving an everyday type car (especially diesel) about but if its a turbo charged high powered car you will deffo have a problem especially if used on track or hard round the lanes for any period of time as cylinder temps will rise along with coolant temps and fans will not have time to cool everything as the coolant will be flowing too fast through the rad

I was going to say it must be different for performance cars .... although my diesel did have a snail sized turbo on it i think it was one of those really quick spooling turbos with the rockets bolted to the sides for maximum boost   

As Bob has said, in high performance cars the thermostat stems the flow of the coolant so it passes slowly enough through the block for heat transfer(convection) to take place. In some of our diesel engined machines we just remove the thermostat on old stuff that's not worth spending money on.

ok thanks for the replies ill get a new stat and throw them both in, is there a specific procedure to doing the radiator on a pulsar? refilling etc or whats the best way to do the job

thanks agina

fitting is easy
make sure you pour the coolant in slowly to avoid getting air locks, once system is filled run the car up to temp with rad cap off then turn the car off, leave for half an hour then top up coolant in rad and expansion bottle and replace rad cap.
drive the car around then check coolant again next morning as level may drop if any air locks were present
job done!

Do it with the rad cap off top her up then start running the engine make sure you have the heaters on hot in the car too ... then once up to temp turn it off let it cool down and check levels again ..

Damn bob you beat me to it   

im on a mission lol

You have found god .....i thought that was a glimmer of a halo when you come round the other week   

that's not a halo its a dark cloud that permenantly sits above my noggin lol

cheers guys ill give it a try and hopefully sort the issue should i also flush the system once its been fitted?

flush = take right hose off and thermo stat out and put hose in pipe and flush?

Thanks again

I dont think theres much need to as your be ditching most of the old stuff out when you change rad and thermostat mate ....

nomad wrote:I dont think theres much need to as your be ditching most of the old stuff out when you change rad and thermostat mate ....

ok thanks wasnt sure how much would still be in the engine if you know what i mean.

If its got no thermostat and you want to clear our the engine remove the rad and blow down the hose where the stat was ...