Runs warmer when colder..

[jtanguay]

I actually kind of expected it to run warm to hot after doing that..  The fact that it ran a tad cooler kind of threw me..
Unless the combo of the heater core and all the WVO crap coupled with the colder than usual conditions last night made up for it..  The restrictor cut it down to a half inch hole, might have been just enough under the conditions...  I need to monitor for a few days...

I've toyed with the idea of using the bypass to circulate coolant through the WVO system, and connect the heater back they way it's supposed to be... Of course when the t-stat opens that'll be shot to hell anyhow.. T-ing into it may be an option, havend sorted that all out yet.. I've always had cirulation problems when it comes to having both the cabin heat and the wvo heat running at the same time..   Even with the additional aux water pumps, and various configuations of having them in series and paralell... Rather agrivating having next to no heat,  cold wvo, and a temp gauge reading 210....

take my advice and wrap all your heater lines and you will not have anymore problems

[maxfax]

take my advice and wrap all your heater lines and you will not have anymore problems

Already done..    This particular car has been a cold blooded SOB since day 1...  I put this car together exactly the same as the other '81 except the tank and alot new parts eventually..  It worked excellent down to the single digit temps..  AS far as the difference in the tanks the first '81 had a 15 gallon drum mounted on it's side in the hatch area with what equated to 10" x 6" x 2" stainless heater core (I think it was some sort of cooler at one point) Mounted in the along the bottom inside the tank..  This car has an 8 gallon tank that fits into the spare tire well, it has a false bottom with a maze of coolant pasages underneath..  I know it's not able to exchange quite as much heat as the other but it should flow as well, if not better.. I contemplated that maybe the larger heat exchanger in the other car is what helped the WVO get warm enough..  But that still doesn;t explain the lack of heat.. Maybe I need to insulate the tire well somehow.. 

[maxfax]

Covered that too.. I have a 195 deg in there.. Tried several (different brands too) and still the same.. Even though the temp gauges get to normal (albeit much slower than the other car) it just doesn;t seem to push enough coolant though for the heat and such.. In severe cold (below 0 deg F) I have to block the grill to get it to warm up, but I do with the other one as well..  Waterpump, heater core, radiator, t-stat all new..  I didn;t cheap out on the pump either...

There has been one other thing I've considered after encountering a "running to cold" problem on a customer's vehicle..   It was an '02 Chevy Avalanche with the 5.3..  These engines also have the t-stat on the inlet side..  THe darn thing had no heat, CEL was on for coolant temp being low, and the coolant temp was hurried to hit 140 in cooler weather..  In the past it had always been a rather hot blooded vehicle.. It had to be a thermostat I thought..  2 thermostats later it was the same.. It ooked like there was somthing in the upper hose/upper rad tank on the diagram for the cooling system in alldata, but it was not identified..   He took it to the dealer and they tried stat #3..  They had the thing for a month until the got to the bottom of it..  He had hit a deer with the truck that past summer..  The radiator had to be replaced, and the insurance company sent an after market radiator.. Apparenly the factory radiator had some sort of baffle/restrictor in the upper tank to slow the coolant return..  Even though the thermostat wasn;t open it must have been allowing some coolant to push past.. They installed a GM radiator and boom it was fixed..   The nice part was the insuance company actually stepped up and paid for the whole ordeal...

When I got this chilly bunny the radiator was questionable at best..  I bought an aftermarket one (Spectra Premium I think).. Could it be that it allows too much flow??  Maybe pushing it past the stat somehow??? I never noticed anything real special in the old radiator when I cut it apart...

I've connected a garden hose to all the heat exchangers and the heater core and they seem to flow adequately..  I installed the electric aux water pump last winter in hopes of getting to the bottom of this.. I had gotten frustrated, and the weather got warm so this bug got pushed to the back burner...    I know when I do finally get to the bottom of this it will be something simple and stupid, it has to be at this point.. I'm glad at least that I now know one thing is normal on this thing, that woudl be the topic of this post..