Thread: T stat housing and leaks

Some of you may realize that some older years had a paper gasket for the housing plus the rubber T stat gasket. The LIM didn't appear to change with the change in not putting the paper gasket on say 00+ cars.

In many cases this leads to some seepage etc on the ones w/o a gasket. Any guy who does enough work on these will likely put a light layer of RTV on the housing before putting it back on.

Soooo I had this wild idea at one point of having a T stat housing machined for an o-ring. That way it would seal up and not be a mess to clean.

This morning.. I went further. How about machining the surface of the LIM right around where the stat sits to make the housing cover have more pressure on the gasket.

yup..I'm gonna get another cup of coffee and slow down these thoughts. Machnine an LIM to seal a stat housing. I'm tired.

I always though it should of been a little tighter. Putting the RTV on and having to wait for it to dry when you need to finish the car quick was always my complaint. Besides that, at least it seals good using the RTV. The water pipe that goes to the water pump on my Accord, always wants to leak a little. Even new Honda orings don't seal well, and putting RTV on seems to make the oring seal worse.

Don't wait...it's fine to put on and start up.

Originally Posted by BillBoost37

Don't wait...it's fine to put on and start up.

It would always leak for me if I didn't let it dry some and then torq it down more to seal.

Weird...

I clean them. toss the new stat in, a little rtv and torque it down. Fire it up and refill immediately.

Its funny, a few weeks ago my thermo housing would leak a lil fluid everyday and im thinking damn i have to replace the o-ring gasket.nope.i went to advance auto and bought some water pump/thermostat liquid gasket and put it on.now no more leaks

did they come factory like that?

96-99 TMK had the rubber ring on the stat plus a paper gasket for the housing. 00+ didn't have the paper gasket.

i could NOT find that paper gasket when i replaced mine and everyone kept telling me it didnt exist. so i didnt use one and the o-ring on the thermo sealed it up by itself how it's supposed to.

Tried using just the oring on seans 99 and it didnt seal, o ring and black rtv=instant seal, mine I have just reused the o ring like 37 times no rtv or gasket.

It's odd...I've seen seepage on the newer ones w/o the paper.