[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index] [New Search]
On 28 Feb 98 at 19:40, MrRebel666 wrote: > What do these things do? are they important? I hesitate to put them back on > thinking they might be thermostat doors, with no thermostat ( i live in > florida) which would starve my engine of air. (i've already put the air > deflectors on, so they aren't those...). If these are black sheet metal parts, they are the rear air deflectors which force the cooling air to pass through the cooling fins rather than spilling out the back of the engine. Each of these should have a weld nut or two to allow it to be bolted to the cylinder cover tin on its respective side. No matter where you live, your engine will cool better and last longer if ALL the cooling tin and the thermostat parts are correctly installed and adjusted. Your engine runs best when the exhaust cooling air is at about 160 F. No matter how hot 100 F may seem to us, it is cool for our engines. The purpose of the thermostat assy. is to allow the engine temp to pass through that high-wear ?-160 F warmup region ASAP thus minimizing wear. Leaving these parts off is common amoung mechanics of the "if some is good, more is better" school of thought, but in this case, as in most others, it is simply not true. Keep in mind that aircooled VWs built for use in the Sahara still came with thermostats. It's not that VW was unwilling to make special changes for special climates, because there are other examples of special things that VW did for different climates/markets. Jim - ******************************* Jim Adney, jadney@vwtype3.org Madison, Wisconsin, USA *******************************