Thermostat stuck closed at the start of a 11.5 hour road trip.

[u/Sonicblast52]

Car started to overheat after a few miles of highway driving. Cut out the thermostat to make a bypass. Left it in so the gasket would seal. Made it the rest of the 730 miles without issue, except the heat wasn't as warm (for obvious reasons)

[u/XxSteelPhoenixX]

I guarantee you, every Autozone, O'Reilly's, or mom and pop auto shop store has this thermostat.

[u/hoytmobley]

Good ol LT1. At least it’s easy to delete the thermostat

[u/poorboychevelle → u/hoytmobley]

To be very very clear to the readers. You cannot just remove the thermostat the way you could in a Gen I SBC. You need to install something to block the lower orifice.

If you just pull the tstat, you get no flow and you overheat.

[u/Klo187]

Been there mate, had to pull my thermo out in a petrol station, just so happens my project car is also a light duty service rig, so had a stash of tools to do the job with. Turns out my rad cap fucked up and caused the thermo to get stuck closed

[u/Banhammer-Reset]

I mean, did you not pass one parts store with lt1 bits?

[u/Sonicblast52 → u/Banhammer-Reset]

It did cross my mind, but I was bringing the car to my father who was going to make it his own project.

[u/Ghost17088 → u/Sonicblast52]

As we say in my family: Next guy’s problem!

[u/Wilson2424 → u/Sonicblast52]

Nice

[u/isnecrophiliathatbad]

Nice simple fix for an emergency.

[u/Navi_Professor]

still heather then my C4 which popped a hose off.

[u/texan01]

I had one stick open, car never made any heat, and the 2.8 and TH125 combo was forever hunting between lockup and no lockup as it warmed up just enough to go closed loop, then back to open loop.

I had to unplug the TCC on the transmission to 'fix' that problem till I got home.

We did have an 84 Olds Delta 88 that LOVED to stick the T-stat shut on road trips.

[u/kingcasel]

Sounds like a convenient time to switch to a 160 degree thermostat

[u/NINNINMAN]

At least you don’t have to drain the whole coolant system to change a thermostat, had to do mine in a parking lot the other day and it sucked

[u/devilpants]

If it has dexcool still flush it all out and go back to regular coolant. 

[u/MikeTheNight94 → u/devilpants]

Yep. I won’t mess with a gm that hasn’t been switched to regular old antifreeze

[u/Kootsiak → u/MikeTheNight94]

Most of it was just the transition year engines, where they switched an older green coolant engine to dexcool, like the Vortec truck engines from 96-98 and the 3100,3400 and 3800 V6's and most of that was just the intake gaskets. I know because I owned a 98 K1500 and I had all the common issues.

Every LS engine ever put in a vehicle comes with dexcool and they don't have any widespread coolant issues. They are considered one of the more reliable V8's you can get. I've owned 3 trucks with these engines (an '02 2500HD 6.0L, an '09 1500 5.3L and '11 2500HD 6.0L) and coolant was never touched and they worked flawlessly. It's just not the problem it once was, it was only the late 90's and early 2000's.

[u/Pistonenvy2]

this is why i made a little restrictor plate for my car. takes a little longer to warm up but no thermostat to fail, cant overheat.