Hawkeye_306
Member
- Jul 20, 2004
- 69
- 3
- 9
When I built my engine I had trouble getting initial air pockets out of the cooling system (I was also paranoid about overheating and ruining my investment).
I drilled a 1/8 inch hole in the thermostat. The reason was to relieve any air pocket that was keeping hot coolant from “touching” the thermostat to open it up when it was supposed to. This was my theory anyway. I believe that it helped. But I was doing so much at once (pressurizing different parts of the system, jumping up and down on the bumper, etc.) that I can`t say for sure. It has not hurt anything.
Don`t read too much into fluctuating coolant levels. They will rise and fall depending on operating conditions. You will get different behavior depending on whether the radiator cap is on or off. In general, if your system is overfilled you will get overflow after you turn the engine off. The fluid level will then go down after the engine cools. This is normal
I drilled a 1/8 inch hole in the thermostat. The reason was to relieve any air pocket that was keeping hot coolant from “touching” the thermostat to open it up when it was supposed to. This was my theory anyway. I believe that it helped. But I was doing so much at once (pressurizing different parts of the system, jumping up and down on the bumper, etc.) that I can`t say for sure. It has not hurt anything.
Don`t read too much into fluctuating coolant levels. They will rise and fall depending on operating conditions. You will get different behavior depending on whether the radiator cap is on or off. In general, if your system is overfilled you will get overflow after you turn the engine off. The fluid level will then go down after the engine cools. This is normal