Driving to a certain place with my girlfriend y'day and suddenly the temp gauge jumps up to 110! Having a heart attack I pull over asap, pop the bonnet and....nothing :S Girlfriend not impressed, rather annoyed actually :p

Turn the car back on and let it run again, temp goes up to 110 again but the fan doesnt cut in but I see coolant leaking from the thermostat housing :(, by this time the gf is incredibly annoyed at having to man the throttle :p

Does this mean just the housing is fooked or also the thermostat aswell as it didnt kick the fan in.

Oh and how hard are they to replace on a valver?

Best place to get one? Not VW hopefully 82.03 for the part +180 for fitting + 16 for coolant.

LOL

Cheers any help!

hello mate you will need to replace the thermostat and houseing, deffo wouldent go to vw with that price as i got mine done for £90 all in, if it happend again i would just change it myself now i know a bit more about cars then i did when i first got one. they cant be hard to change, I'm sure if they are someone will let you know.

ECP sell a pattern part for 40 ish quids :p, any idea on how you would go about changing it yourself? I can see a couple of 10mm bolts, is it just a matter of unscrewing the old part and putting the new part in?

ECP sell a pattern part for 40 ish quids :p, any idea on how you would go about changing it yourself? I can see a couple of 10mm bolts, is it just a matter of unscrewing the old part and putting the new part in?

you've answered your own question...

bar topping up coolant and bleeding the system

Yeey , okay so to bleed the system....I have to?

its dead easy to do mate...yes undo the 2 10mm nuts holding the thermostat housing on the side of the engine.

coolant/water will then start to piss out...upto you if you wanna jack it up and undo the bottom radiator hose to empty the water/coolant out first...then take the housing off and change the thermostat. Its a bit fiddly but shouldnt take more than 20mins to change over.

Then its a case of doing it all back up and filling the car up with water/coolant...and turning it on with the coolant cap off and squeeze the rad hoses to bleed out any trapped air!

Run it for a couple mins and check the fluid level...then stick the cap back on. If you have air trapped in your water system then the heaters will take longer to get warm! that means you just have repeat the above by taking the cap off and squeezing the hoses- mainly top hose!

BE CAREFUL WHEN YOU WORK ON THIS, ENSURE THE CAR IS COLD AND DON'T UNDO THE EXPANSION TANK BOTTLE UNLESS ITS COLD!

Great answer ^^ if mine every breaks again I will be doing myself :-)

Nice one dubbprince! Sounds like DIY job then, I've just gone and got the part form ECP, the guy said something about a blanking thing. I bought it just incase I need it. Any ideas what he was on about?

There's a blanking plug that fits in the housing next to the coolant temp sensor.

sorry to steal your thread but my car is leaking at the thermostat housing. i wondering if mk3 spi and gt thermostat housing are the same (Part number)

I see so i need it :p

Thanks everyone probs gonna have a go at this myself tomo.

sorry to steal your thread but my car is leaking at the thermostat housing. i wondering if mk3 spi and gt thermostat housing are the same (Part number)

They're not. The GT housing has two pipes blocked off that you need on the SPI.

sorry to steal your thread but my car is leaking at the thermostat housing. i wondering if mk3 spi and gt thermostat housing are the same (Part number)

whats your engine code? i believe they are the same p/n mate- but see above reply regarding blanks- you can buy these from vw:

(2) 030121117L

thermostat housing / also use:

*>>F80RY100000 N 906 298 01 / HZ,2G,AAU, AAV,ACM,

(2) 030121117M

thermostat housing / also use:

*>>F80RY100000 N 906 298 01 / NZ,PY,3F

Become a member of vagcat.com and check to make sure...its at this link

http://www.vagcat.com/epc/cat/vw/PO/1992/120/49/1251941/

Edited 15 February, 201016 yr by DubbPrince

I see so i need it :p

Thanks everyone probs gonna have a go at this myself tomo.

you could just re-use your blanking plug if you have it...all your doing is swapping out the thermostat...not changing the housing...so there should be no need.

I see so i need it :p

Thanks everyone probs gonna have a go at this myself tomo.

you could just re-use your blanking plug if you have it...all your doing is swapping out the thermostat...not changing the housing...so there should be no need.

Nah changing the housing aswell. What I bought seems like the housing and thermostat comes all in one....or am I wrong?

Well seeing as the weather is better today, I attempted the stat. All seemed very simple, until it came to undoing the 2 10mm bolts. Actually make that 1 10mm and 1 13mm :@.

Looks like some1 has used some gasket sealant and threaded a 13mm bolt into the housing- which is now slipping. So the whole thermostat housing has to be replaced, luckily I bought the whole thing :p

How could some1 with even a simple mind thread a bigger bolt into a obviously smaller hole!

Bloody bodged mechanic me thinks :@

Anyways rant over

But now I am in need of knowing how to remove the WHOLE housing, the thing that has like 5 pipes going into it and has 3 bolts attaching it to the block.

Any advice

Undo the 3 bolts and 5 pipes? lol

No its never that simple! Dont lie to me

But yeah...is that it? Anything else to worry about?

pretty much is that simple, just quite a fiddle getting to the 3 bolts, did you get a new temp sensor with the housing?

its worth changing that as well!

I did indeed matey Apparently my car is running 110 degrees so I think the stat is fooked!