Those of you who recently discussed plugging the bypass hose for more
efficient cooling finally got me to do something. Thanks everybody!
Bob Schaller, in his booklet "More BS about TR's", suggested tapping the
water pump hole, where the top of the bypass hose connects, with a 3/8 NPT
pipe tap, and screwing in a brass plug. I didn't really want to do that,
because I didn't like the idea of all those metal particles that I wasn't
able to clean out floating around in the cooling system. Others on the
List suggested plugging the bottom end of the hose with a metal plug, and
that's what I ended up doing yesterday. I didn't expect a drastic
improvement, because with the electric fan and adjustable thermostat I put
in a coupla years ago, the car no longer overheats.
Results? A test drive showed the following: Where before the temp. gage
indicated exactly 185 degrees F, it now runs a little below 185. More
importantly, I adjusted the fan thermostat to turn on a little above 185,
so now the fan hardly ever runs. Since the fan draws about 10 amps, this
change provides a bonus of less wear and tear on the fan and the generator,
and even better gas mileage due to the lighter load on the engine.
Sumner Weisman
62 TR-3B
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