Good to hear Jules.

Bulk buy
 

JULES, brilliant! I was a bit worried that the mod would lose you a lot of customers but now they will have the choice when they visit for buscuits!

hmm interesting ! I was about to order a bog standard stat from you Jules but I think I shall hang fire, no point in doing things the hard way is there! :}

About this little hole. Don't you need a little water flow inorder for the heat to reach the thermostat. ie if you have a long pipe full of water and only heated one end how long would it take for the other end to get hot. If the thermostat were at this end it might not open at the desired engine (block) time. But if there was a slow flow of water the other end would heat faster.

Hole
 

My initial thought when starting the experiment was that there had to be a by-pass hole in the new 'stat to prevent an air lock and to enable the hot water to reach the unit to cause it to open. I tried various sizes of holes but then discovered that there is a well hidden small hole in the Chevvy one.
No further holes have proved necessary. I have had no problems with my installation which was allowing a maximum of 74C with the old stat and now runs between 87C and 93C depending on engine load. The warm up time is not radically improved since the diesel struggles to reach temperature in the cold weather anyway but I now have warm feet which I certainly didn't have before.

if you look at the engine cooling diagram you'll see that the heater will act as a suitable bypass

As mine is running at an average of about 74c, I'll definitely be buying one of these. It looks like a straightforward mod which I'd be able to do myself... I'd certainly never attempt changing the OEM stat! if I lived closer to Jules I would have had it done by him already, but it's just too far away.

Once these go on sale I'll be first in the queue :D

Superb mod Wuzerk, congratulations ! Could you put me down for a kit please Jules, my CDTI is running at 74c !

PLEASE make a proper how-to for this... would love to do it but not overly confident :(

Been following all these thermostat threads for a year or so and have a brand new one in a box i bought last winter waiting to be fitted. This seems to be what everyone has been looking for and makes much more sense than fitting another doomed to failure stat. so waiting with interest and should be worth the extra expense :bowdown: