Troublemaker!

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'82 300SD - 361K mi - "Blue"

"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement."

listen, look, .........and duck.

Seriously guys, there is a really detailed explanation in the FSM with diagrams of the flow paths around the thermostat. It explains WHY removing the thermostat reduces flow through the head(or something like that) and why it's not a good idea. I looked at for quite a while trying to understand it. If you look at this and understand it, please, 'splain it to me.

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'82 300SD - 361K mi - "Blue"

"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement."

listen, look, .........and duck.

On these MB's they use a coolant bypass system.

At lower temps, 80-94C, the coolant flow is Head-bypass-waterpump-block.

At higher temps, 95C and up, the flow is head-radiator-t-stat-waterpump-block.

If the t-stat is removed, it would cause less pressure through the radiator and actually diminish cooling since the pressure would be nearly equal at the "to" and "from" hoses. Basically, the reason is the "to" and "from" hoses for the radiator are right next to each other at the t-stat.

The advantage to this set up is more cooling with a smaller radiator and faster warm up.

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Sam

84 300SD 350K+ miles ( Blue Belle )

I think I'm beginning to get it. Thanks, Sam!

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'82 300SD - 361K mi - "Blue"

"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement."

listen, look, .........and duck.

I agree with this description. In other words, the thermostat is required to provide the pressure differential that pushes the coolant through the radiator. If you remove the thermostat, the radiator inlet and outlet pressures will be almost equal, resulting in less flow through the radiator.