well, i picked up my new thermostat and gasket from mazda on saturday, and i went to install it today.
i pulled the upper rad hose off, and drained the coolant a little bit. then i pulled the tstat housing off and pulled the tstat out. i then spent an hour scraping the old gasket off of the tstat housing. i also cleaned up the surface of the waterpump.
i put the new tstat in in the EXACT same position as the old one was in. i put silicon sealer on both sides of the gasket, and put it over the tstat. i then put the housing back on, and bolted it down. i hooked the rad back up, and put the air cleaner and what not back on. went to fill the radiator back up, and i hear a "drip, drip, drip... drip"! look under the car, and coolant is leaking out from the tstat housing!!!!
did i do anything wrong? the only thing that i can think of is that i didn't let it sit long enough... but haynes didn't say anything about that. i hope that i didn't ruin anything, as i can't deal with it now... cuz i have to go to work.
i will have time to work on it tomorrow. if anyone has any ideas of why it is leaking, it would be greatly appreciated.
sorry for the novel!
thank you, jeff

 

I advise against the use of silicone RTV or similar products for that use. I had a '72 BMW Bavaria that was overheating when I bought it cheap. When I pulled off the thermostat cover, there was a wad of blue silicone RTV that had squished out into the thermostat opening, blocking the water flow. I cleaned all the RTV out of the thermostat, made a new gasket, and put everything back together. No more overheating problem. I'd get a good new gasket, make one if you have to, and maybe use just a thin layer of form-a-gasket on either side of the gasket. I'll help you make a gasket if you want, I've got some gasket material here. Give me a call and I'll try to help you if you've got some time before the 4th.

 

So you basically just bolt it in place with the gasket, and nothing else, and it should work like that? If so, I'm gonna go out and get a thermostat and gasket after Canada Day and put it in.

Jon

 

I just replaced mine yesterday.

I have had no problems to this point, and have driven the car like 60 Miles since I changed it.

Here is what I did...

Remove Air breather

I used the coolent drain plug located just under the oil filler tube in the centre housing.

Drained out enough coolent to beable to remove the top rad hose and access the thermostat.

Remove the two bolts that held the rad hose and flange fitting in place to access thermostat.

The old gasket was stuck to the flange, so I took a chisel and scraped as much of the old gasket off as I could.

I took the flange down to bare metal with emery cloth.

I removed the old thermostat, noting the postion of the little ball thing in side of it

Very carfuly cleaned the area where the thermostat seats into the housing - there is a sholder into which the thermostat seats.

Installed the new MAZDA thermostat

Took a small amount of automotive service grease and smeared it over both surfaces of the new gasket (which was provided with the thermostat)

Put the gasket over the thermostat and lined up the bolt holes

Cafuly reinstalled the flang fitting and rad hose.

Used a 14mm soket to tighten the bolts that hold the flang in place

Filled the system up with cooent

Checked for leeks

Replaced the pressure cap, started the car and let warm up to temp

No problems

I think the liquid gasket is your problem.

If the flange surface and the housing surface are both properly cleaned and the proper gasket used there should be no problems.

I hope this helps

Best of luck

Anthtrax

EDIT: I forgot to mention that this fixed my overheating problem

 

thanks guys, i got it figured out though. i guess that the tstat came out of its seat... so i put it back in with it in the right spot, and am gonna go out and try and see if it worked.
thanks for the replies.
jeff