Oh ok, I understand. I was probably gonna drill the hole over the weekend along with adding teh gasket. I just wanted to understand how that would help.

Ok thanks guys, i'll pop in agin if theres another problem

might as well while its out

http://www.bonnevilleclub.com/forum/...30&highlight=A

The purpose of the hole for fill up would be to allow air to pass. Once the ar is up and running, there is honestly a difference because you can bypass some coolant past the thermostat and you will run slightly cooler/take a little longer to heat up.

Once you reached operating temps.. that air bubble should have passed through the T stat if it was going to w/o you having to take other measures.

Been there..swapped around 6 T stats thinking it was a defective batch. Boiled 2 in a pot. The odd part is many times I don't need to bleed the system and all is well. That one time... I had an air bubble that wouldn't come out.

When you get it back together if the problem persists..I would suggest jacking the front end or using ramps with the car up to temp.

I was unable to get around to it last weekend, College stuff came up, didn't have time.

Wednesday night i made the trip town to Naggs Head NC. and back up Thursday afternoon, and she ran perfectly all the way down. On the way back up however just before the Bridge Tunnel there was a 20 minute back up and temps shot up, was at about 220* again. then we got moving pretty good, and got to the tunnel and it went up to 240-250 range (The line just before she goes Red on the gauge) . I couldn't stop in the tunnel so i rode it out and we got to moving at about 70 mph and it slowly came down. Tomorrow im taking off work early, first im checking the brakes as I have put 500 miles on them and I want to back check, especially the drums. Then the 180* comes out, ima drill it and test it, reinstall it with the gasket and raise the front end up and hopefully solve this problem.

I wanted to know, any recommendation about size or how many holes to drill in this Virginia climate?

For what it is worth - I put a 180 in my 93 SSEi this year - no problems. Went to Memphis last week and it was 104 degrees every day. Engine temp never crossed 200.

Instead of yanking the tstat drilling it and then trying the elevated front end.. you could merely park on ramps etc before pulling it.

I'm trying to say that if the flow of the coolant through the open thermostat didn't release that air bubble...why would one tiny hole next to the open valve? The hole is designed to help on first fill up before you reach operating temp and allow some coolant to bypass the thermostat.