Jules I have put a hose clip around the body of the stat just to make sure that A it stays put and B to make sure there is a seal .Although when you come to fit the stat in the pipe you will see that it is quite a tight fit anyway
You may beat me to it in fitting it back on the car as it is B****Y freezing here and to cold to work out side.:}

I'd give the Renault 'stat some time before announcing that everything else is obsolete - it could be that they are less reliable than the OE Rover ones..... and Meziere can supply a 90.5°C stat which will open later than a Renault 89°C so will be 'better' for getting the motor to run that little bit hotter.

(But I still expect it will work fine....):D

Do you think 1.5 degrees will make that much difference knowing how inacurat stats are any way??
I dont know myself but it has got to improve things from what it was in my particular situatiion:shrug:

It will make a difference. I don't know if it will be that significant though ;) (and for the cost saving I probably wouldn't really care!)

The only thing that would concern me is reliability in use and without seeing one and fitting it I don't know if that is likely to be an issue. There do seem to be some comments on Astra forums about it though - but that could be ham-fisted yoof bodging them into place as much as anything else. I expect they worked fine in Renaults. But with my Meziere housing and Chevy 'stat I'm not going have to bother to find that out either.

:shrug:i know this might sound radical..... has anyone tried running there cars without the under engine tray??? this is designed not only to protect the engine but also to direct air around the engine bay to aid cooling, my bro-in-law was trained on rover/mg and told me the other day if you see a 75 without the tray it could easily over heat, he said he had worked on a number that had done this, i have no idea as a bit of a monkey when it comes to mechanics but he is real good, always fixes my cars (and he has had to that alot with the cars i have had lol), he only mentioned this as mine is held on by cable ties lol and he said to get it fixed properly as if it comes off it wont do it any favours, he also mentioned something about the egr bypass valve, if you do the bypass it can raise the temp?? again no idea, he may have been pulling my wotsits lol but who know, i just thought i would throw my two pence worth in.

Quick question on the top hose - I can see the spring clip on the radiator end of the hose, but can't work out what kind of clip holds the hose on at the engine end? Just looks like a steel band on mine, is that correct? If so, what's best way to remove?

Cheers,
Rich

May be an issue with other models, but I don't think the diesel will suffer those problems. I ran mine with the radiator completely blocked with a sheet of cardboard and barely managed to get it up to normal operating temp.

Rich

where abouts on the gauge should the needle be when up to temp? i have a cdt, mine sits dead middle

There is deadband built into the gauge. It will read normal anywhere from about low 70's through to low 100's (as a rough guess - I'm sure somewill will chirp in with the true values).

But you can go into diagnostic mode on your dash and get it to display the temperature instead of odometer to check the true temperature. There's a How-To on here that describes the procedure.

Cheers,
Rich

If you look carefully you will see a metal spring that is located in the plastic housing just behind the metal band you need to pull this out to the stop(ther is a small section that you can put a small bladed screw driver into) and then the plastic part should pull out! I say should because although I have released the spring the B*****d thing still wont come apart :mad: