LOL,
Well, as the subject heading implies, I replaced the thermostat, Rad cap and drained and flushed the cooling system on my 97 Ram over the weekend.
I've owned this truck for over a year now and I had no idea when it was done last, so I felt it was time to do it so I had a baseline. The old coolant looked great yet though. I also inspected the drive belt and all of the hoses (which appear original) all hoses still are in excellent condition so I did not replace them.
They really buried that thermostat housing down on the intake though. Even with the alternator removed, it's still pretty tight. I got the job done, but I had to really look at the routing for the serpentine belt as my first few attempts left me with way too much slack or not enough. The T-stat I pulled said 180 degrees, so that's what I purchased. However, with the old "180" t-stat the truck typically ran around 200 degrees which I didn't care for, and found Odd for a 180 T-stat. With the coolant flush and new 180 T-stat installed the truck does run cooler (as indicated on the dash guage).
My fuel mileage I suppose will be worse because I assume the computer wants the truck to run at 200 degrees and the fuel mixture will probably be too "rich" now, but I can live with that for the roughly 2K miles I put on this truck annually. It does feel a bit more powerful running cooler, another side benefit.
Just figured I'd share.....there is plenty of room under the hood though, that's one positive!
-Greg
Well, as the subject heading implies, I replaced the thermostat, Rad cap and drained and flushed the cooling system on my 97 Ram over the weekend.
I've owned this truck for over a year now and I had no idea when it was done last, so I felt it was time to do it so I had a baseline. The old coolant looked great yet though. I also inspected the drive belt and all of the hoses (which appear original) all hoses still are in excellent condition so I did not replace them.
They really buried that thermostat housing down on the intake though. Even with the alternator removed, it's still pretty tight. I got the job done, but I had to really look at the routing for the serpentine belt as my first few attempts left me with way too much slack or not enough. The T-stat I pulled said 180 degrees, so that's what I purchased. However, with the old "180" t-stat the truck typically ran around 200 degrees which I didn't care for, and found Odd for a 180 T-stat. With the coolant flush and new 180 T-stat installed the truck does run cooler (as indicated on the dash guage).
My fuel mileage I suppose will be worse because I assume the computer wants the truck to run at 200 degrees and the fuel mixture will probably be too "rich" now, but I can live with that for the roughly 2K miles I put on this truck annually. It does feel a bit more powerful running cooler, another side benefit.
Just figured I'd share.....there is plenty of room under the hood though, that's one positive!
-Greg
