Posted by Ben on March 29, 02 at 21:07:18:
In Reply to: Cooling System Flush - Remove Thermostat ? posted by Traveler on March 29, 02 at 19:30:30:
The thermostat is a reverse poppet valve (means it opens against normal fluid flow), so it will open when there is reverse flow (garden hose into to radiator hose towards engine). This gets reverse flow through the engine and radiator. Heaters too, but I also disconnect the return line form heater core to radiator (this is the "cold" line) and have a set up of copper/pvc pipe to garden hose fittings. Can do the rear heater too all from same spot. Don't even open the drain spigot at bottom of radiator anymore. I've kept old top radiator hose and use reducers to scrape garden hose to 5 gallon plastic bucket. Some times don't spill much coolant at all.
Depending on condition of that stat, you could leave it in there...even during the chem treatment. It's made to withstand the auto supply shelf chem treatments.
I'm going to take out the block plugs next flush (in about 4-6 weeks from now. Looking for long brisle brush like baby bottle, but narrower...like the one used to clean refrigerator coils (might use that one, but it was $9.99...kind of expensive for this) to poke into the plug'n gallery behind it. Kind of like a pipe cleaner inside the engine block...
Hot link below has pictures of the Moss6 180*F thermostat and the 195*F modified by me. The place to drill the hole is visiable on the pictures. The Moss6 thermostat was not drilled in this picture, but I've since installed it witha 1/16"dia hole in the flange. Know you have, but for the others, read up about this at the Stewart web page ( http://www.stewartcomponents.com/chevy.htm ). They talk about modifying by adding holes in their thermostats (gets it into the game faster by always having fluid flowing...stock stat's have teeny, tiny holes to do this, but they are too small and delay getting the stat into the game soon enough...for me at least). I've tried 1/32" dia hole and didn't see any difference from the hole that came stock.