Talk:Thermostat replacement

Just completed the job on my 2001 2.0 duratec, following the directions of this excellent guide.

Time: 3 hours Skill level: 2 Patience level: 101

It's just a tight space to get the tools in to remove the hose clips and bolts. I ended up using a pair of needle nose vice grips (jaw locking pliers) to hold the hose clips open so I could focus on pulling the hoses off of the thermostat. Worked like a charm.

This guide was very helpful, but there some additional things I noticed during the procedure (I decided not to modify original text and place this here):

1. Use gloves, it's true that you can have your hands "damage".
2. Indeed, original part is very expensive, to save costs I bought used one and it works well too (I know, there's always a risk).
3. In the original text you flush cooling liquid by dismounting the cooling pipe, I think it is better to do it using special plastic screw on the bottom of cooler (right side, looking from driver's perspective), that way you can reuse old cooling fluid.
4. Pipes are indeed hard to fit back again - use a bit of lubricant on the inside to help them get on again.
5. I had the same fault with thermostat arms (seems to be common).
6. My used part was lacking electrical connector (it's a heater), it works as expected without it (basically it's an extra feature to have better performance).
7. Do not try to dismount steering fluid container to have more space - you may end up with no power steering.
8. To help putting the pipes back on you can put some grease on the inside.