S1 Off the Ground

[I Cooke]

Morning all.

I've recently bought a standard S1 and have suffered a suspected thermostat failure.
The job doesn't seem technically difficult, but bloody awkward!

Talking to a guy at work, he made some trestles to rest his car on whilst he worked on it. Has anyone done the same, or do you all use axle stands?

Cheers

Ian

[Skaffen]

Reams of paper under jacking points B seem to be one common alternative to axle stands at that point... If you've not seen it, the seloc wiki has a page about the jacking points:

http://wiki.seloc.org/a/Jacking_points

[Benmac]

Not done it myself but I think that taking the inlet manifold off the car provides some access to the thermostat from above.

[Riff Raff]

Benmac said:

Not done it myself but I think that taking the inlet manifold off the car provides some access to the thermostat from above.

That's how the garage that changed mine did it. It was a sod of a job.

[TIPPER]

Axle stands work a treat - I ran a bit of 2x1 across the tops of the stands to soften the hard points of the stands iyswim. Forms a cheap trestle.

[banx22]

If you want my advice; take the rear clam off when you change the thermostat. When I fitted my PRT that's what I did; so much more room and much easier to see what you are doing.

Only takes about 30 - 40 mins to get the clam off (if no bolts are rusty!).

[Scuffers]

banx22 said:

Only takes about 30 - 40 mins to get the clam off (if no bolts are rusty!).

that's thr rub, these days that's just not going to happen, usually takes 1-2 hours by the time you have cut/ground all the bolts off

[simonfrost]

You are certain it is the thermostat, not the sensor? Potentially a more common failure?

[I Cooke]

I'm not 100% sure, so I've bought new sensors to swap at the same time.
Annoyingly, I didn't buy a new housing and the plastic inserts are just spinning so I can't get the old one out!

Now waiting for a replacement... :-/