1989 5.7 thermostat

[gregd]

hey all, thought i'd pass this on, i've got an '89 K1500 with the 5.7, TBI, okay?.
had noticed it never came up to temp, and finally got around to changing the thermostat. you would think this is pretty easy, right?
well, whoever designed this motor decided that they needed some back and side bracing for the serpentine belt tensioner. good idea, i can go with this. they then decided that the back brace needed to be attached to a stud on the thermostat housing. then they decided that this brace needs to have a spacer about 3/8" thick welded onto the end that mounts to the tensioner in order to position the side brace and built it all so you have to remove the side brace, then the back brace just so you can take off the thermostat housing. what this all boils down to, and pardon me for going on, is that in order to change the thermostat on this motor, you need to completely unbolt and remove the serpentine belt tensioner! i put it back together tonight, without the braces, in order to have this running tomorrow, but will have to redesign this setup with a new spacer/bracket layout.
oh, btw, found the t'stat stuck open, so that was the temp prob, runs a nice 180 or so now.

[hotrodpc]

Cool !!! Or actually, Warm !!! Now. So these brackets you are reffering to. Is this OEM standard set up, or someone elses design? Sounds like a headache for such a simple procedure. Although, if its OEM, I'd be putting it back the way it was. You can trust, if it was not necessary, they would not have put it on there at the factory.

[silverhairdeere]

Originally Posted by hotrodpc

Cool !!! Or actually, Warm !!! Now. So these brackets you are reffering to. Is this OEM standard set up, or someone elses design? Sounds like a headache for such a simple procedure. Although, if its OEM, I'd be putting it back the way it was. You can trust, if it was not necessary, they would not have put it on there at the factory.

it's oem , the same on mine rrrrrr

shd