For triumphs you can get these thermostats.
82 degrees
in two degree steps to
70 degrees.
There are arguments to weather it makes cooling better or worse with our
without the thermostat. I reckon the two arguments are equal and it makes
no difference at all to the cooling of the car.
Go for the higher temperature thermostat. My Spitfire has an 82 degree
fitted, and cools sweetly. Running with a lower temperature means you have
thick slow moving oil, you may have oil pressure but it's not as effective
as thin fast moving oil with low oil pressure. Also the longer your engine
takes to warm the more wear you put on it, the longer you have to wait to
use full power.
Generally speaking the hotter an engine runs the more power you get, and the
less emissions. Raising the temperature of the engine may get you passed an
emissions test. Oh yes and the hotter the water is in the radiator the
quicker heat is transferred from engine to air. I.e. an 82 degree
thermostat is open for less time than a 70 degree thermostat. Infact in hot
weather there may be no difference in operating temperature where as in cold
weather your car will be colder meaning there is not enough heat to keep the
occupants happy. A good heater is essential for topless driving in good
weather.
General advice for your cooling system is, if the DPO has not put the
thermostat in then he is a bodger. Thus your cooling system will need a bit
of TLC. The TLC should processed thusly.
Drain your coolant system and do a bit of a back flush with a hose pipe.
Fill with plain water and add a radiator flush power or liquid (powder take
ages to get in the top of the rad).
Run like this for get the engine nice and hot (tin foil over the radiator
and keep an eye on the gadge), leave it in for a couple of days max!
Back flush the whole system.
Drain the system, back flush, the heater separately.
Take your radiator out, back flush and shake.
Look at your hoses, they need replacing you need to order the thermostat to
the rad, rad to pump. The others are 1/2 inch tubing. Replace all the
jubilee clips on the hoses.
Clean up the corrosion on the bits where the hoses clip. You need to make
sure that your system can stand 13+PSI.
Put the whole lot together and fill with 50:50 environmentally Unfriendly
antifreeze and water. You want stuff that will last with corrosion
presenters and that will also raise the boiling point.
Renew the radiator pressure cap!
Fit your 82 degree thermostat.
If you dont renew the pressure cap you would have to run at a lower
temperature thus requiring a lower thermostat which is not good. The
boiling point of coolant is raised to 115 degrees C.
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