weird t-stat housing ?

[Moose]

Is this supposed to be sticking up like this? It's on top of the thermostat housing on my 78 Bronco with the 400. James or Kevin, yall might be able to tell me something. I read somewhere on the PJB bulleting board that there is some special housing that these things have. Don't get me lyin, but it said these things recycle the fluid inside the block until it gets to operating temperature. Afterwards, it opens up and lets the thermostat do its thing. Hopefully this is why my bronco is always hot. I already have an edelbrock victor series water pump waiting to be installed, but I recently installed a new OEM water pump, thermostat, 3-row brass/copper radiator, flex fan, plus new heater hoses. And yes, I know these things run hot, but WHY?

[Broncocustom]

I can tell what you are looking at in that picture. Both of mine had a tree looking thing sticking up with hoses that came of it to the vavle cap breathers. I got rid of the hoses and caped the holes.

They run hot do to a very poor oiling system. In the middle of the engine some restrictions exist in the oil passages. Not enough oil gets to the back of the engine for correct lubrication, so the engine is hotter due to more friction. One trick I read about is adding a hose from an oil passage on the front of the engine to a oil passage in the rear of the engine, which will allow more oil to get to the rear of the engine.

[Shaggy]

mine is capped aswell... i cant figure out why the hell it was there in the first place

[stx4wheeler]

my 460 in my bronco doesnt have that on it. my new one just has a hole for the water temp gauge. And as for running hot yeha mine loves to do that.

[robertf03]

its a vacuum switch that opens up when it gets hot. my 360 had 3 of them, and my 302 had 2. no need to plug them, just don't run any vacuum hoses to them and you'll be fine. you could use a pipe plug to get rid of them, or my personal favorite, some spark plugs :D i wouldn't worry about it

it does things like turns on the smog pump, redirects the smog pump to the cat instead of upstream of the exhaust. turns on EGR when your at operating temp, probalby some other stuff. its the emission era way of making a logic circuit based on temperature for all the smog stuff.