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I don't know if I've got a thermostat (sorry for the inexperience) The main fan runs consistently and the secondary electric fan is operated by a toggle switch. I generally see around 180f in currently temperatures.
The thermostat can be located by following the top radiator hose to the intake manifold. You won't see until you remove the hose (and spill coolant on the engine
). All cars will have them, after a while they can get stuck open / closed. They are very simple devices... a piece of wax metls and solidifies. When it melts (at given temperature) it allows the valve to open and let coolant flow. When the coolant drops in temp, the wax starts to solidify and is able to close the valve and stop coolant flow. For our cars, they are really cheap in the states, looked on rockauto and they are about £1 each. They are about £10 each delivered if buying from a UK seller (bit of a rip off in comparison
)
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_odkw= ... t&_sacat=0
It sounds like your stat is the 180f one then if that's where it normally sits. It might be an idea to get a fan thermo switch (called something along the lines), i have one from Mr.Gasket, got from real steel for about £20/£30. It uses a temp probe that goes into a radiator fin and activates a relay that turns on the fan when it reaches a given temp. Really easy install. Comes with instructions, gives you an option to keep a toggle switch on too if needed so you can turn it on whenever you like (for example i used to park in a multistory and the temp would always get hot as i had just sat in traffic, then climbed several floors, so no air flow and the temp would get to over 100c (fan would kick in at 107c) so the fan was just about ready to kick in but you'd turn the car off and i didn't like the idea of it being turned off so hot, would have preferred to have manually had the fan come on so it would be about 20c cooler when turning the engine off). They come in different temp ranges, so you could get one that kicks in at say 210f, so that way if you're in traffic and it gets to 100c, the electric fan will automatically come on, then off automatically when the temp drops.
I've had the car running recently, around fifteen minutes from cold on the driveway, idling. She didn't rise above 200 degrees without the additional electric fan.
I think the summer months will prove whether the engine is under or over heating. In which case I may well need the fan thermo switch you mentioned.