Since I'm having Sean make me up an SSCT, i'm gonna need to swap Tstats. Been wanting to anyways, the direction the texas heat + stock clutch fan is going.

On my truck, the dipstick says the radiator is full, about 6" below the top of the rad. I haven't looked at it closely, but wouldn't this put the t-stat above the water line?

If this were the case, I can just unbolt, swap, re-bolt, and theoretically, I shouldn't have to burp the system, correct?

Now that said, to tap a heater line for an aftermarket gauge, that will be below the water line, and thus I'll have to remove water and burp the system?

 

so I read the FSM, and didn't realize that Dodge uses an external fill tank. No wonder I was seeing things wierd.

So how much will I have to drain from the radiator to change the thermostat, and where is the drain petcock?

And how do I keep it from draining the fill tank? Just take the pressure cap off?

 

Each model is different V6 V8 little 4 I have the little 4 so my rad the drain valve is on the bottom of the rad but I think the fastest thing to do is just unscrew the bottom rad hose and drain it out that way you may as well do a flush of the system at same time as the TSTAT and replace any old hoses and new clamps also.

so here is my suggestion drain first before replacing the TSTAT Use caution its HOT then fill and flush with just water drain then replace the TSTAT.

 

where is the drain petcock on the radiator? I'm guessing you have to remove the lower radiator shroud/belly pan?

nvm. search says its on the driver side of the radiator, and is more than likely stripped out?

 

The rad drain valve is slow as hell just pull the bottom rad hose way faster just be careful to not burn your hand.

Those small valves are slow and sometimes will not close after you drain the rad or even snap off trying to use the damn thing.

Think beyond the norm

 

alright, i managed not to make a mess. I unbolted the horn and pulled the top hose and drained it into a pitcher, then went underneath and pulled the lower hose halfway off the water pump and just let it trickle drain for about 10 minutes.

Pulled the housing off, and the gasket was 100% wasted. So I scraped it off the housing, went to pull the factory tstat, and it came apart on me. So I had to fish the plunger, spring, and guide out of the intake manifold. I assembled it there on the driveway to make sure I had all the parts and didn't need to fish some more.

Put the new tstat on (spring going into the manifold), scraped off a little gasket on the manifold, applied the new gasket to the housing, and bolted it down to 15 ft-lbs.

Waiting on the city hazmat guy to call me back on where to displose the quart of antifreeze I drained out.

Used a funnel and filled the top hose up, put the rad cap on, then put some extra in the overflow tank.

pulled the fuel pump relay and spun the motor over for about 10 seconds, made sure wasn't any leaks, put the relay back in, and fired it up. Let it run while I looked for any leaks, and let it warm up until the gauge stabilized one needle to the right of the lower hashmark. Grabbed the heat gun, bottom hose was 125, top hose was 158. I shut it off and called it good. Checked coolant tank, was right at the full mark.

Project DONE.