Keegan

I just finished putting in a two gauge battery ground to the chasis then on to the tranny bolt. Nothing else was changed. When I've been driving today, after about 10 or 15 minutes of doing 50 MPH or so, my temp gauge is rising to a little less than 3/4 and the car seems noticably hotter. There is no coolant loss or boiling after shut down, and I could be wrong about the car feeling hotter (ironically, its been kind of cool here for the last two days, probably under 90 (in Tennessee), it may just be that I feel the normal amount of heat of the car more easily since it isn't hot as ***** outside).



My question is this, could a better chasis ground change the coolant gauge readout? After redoing the ground I have noticed no benefits at all from the new ground (I guess the stock one wasn't too bad after all). I'm assuming my thermostat probably just coincidentaly got crappy today, it is probably 7 years old, but man has it been rock solid up until now.



I wouldn't even ask this question until I put in the new thermostat if I had time do it before next week Got other peoples cars to fix,

toplessFC3Sman

did you remove anything when adding the grounds? the underbody pan makes a huge difference in cooling, did you take that off to get to any points?

Keegan

Well, it is off right now. But has been off for the last few weeks, I'm currently trying to catch up on all the little things that add up over time on a secondary driver car, and I don't want to bother with possibly having to pull those shields again, so I just don't drive it in the rain. I really haven't noticed any difference on the cooling without the bottom pan in the past, or up till now, but my radiator and thermostat have always been rock solid.



I'm pretty sure the thermostat will take care of it, I really just wanted to know about the grounding thing in relation to the coolant thermo sensor. And yes I did remove something else, the old ground wire out of the wiring harness, and I rewraped the harness with a layer of upside-down electrical tape, a layer of glass tape I got at an electric supply store, and then another layer of good electric tape. If anyone is doing any wiring harness work I highly suggest this technique.

toplessFC3Sman

well, the belly pan isnt for rain protection, its to direct air thru the radiator and oil cooler instead of around. Ive also noticed that the front end on my vert seemed to get a little bit light at around 80 or 85 without it too.

Keegan

^^^ I agree with all of that, but I really don't like to go around in the rain without it. I've seen plenty of cars that stop running worth a crap when the engine gets wet, not that mine does but better safe than sorry. Also a big splash of water on a fully heated up engine, while sort of unlikely, could crack something. Not saying I'm paranoid about it, but better safe than sorry.

dcrasta

The thermostat will make a difference too. Night and day for me. Now with 100 degree outside and full blast ac inside its still below 1/3. Before with the thermostat out it was going 1/2 - 3/4 and scaring me. Make sure u use the Mazda , not the generic ones. The Mazda is actually different shape than the rest. I believe in the slowing the coolant down to cool more effectively theory, and keeping the oil temps down.

Keegan

Well. I went ahead and started to change the thermostat yesterday. Guess what, both the bolts broke



Luckily, I had one of the Mazda waterpump housings laying around (I knew I spent that 250 bucks years ago for some reason).



Well and hour or so later and I realize that I didn't use the two washer/spacer things that were still sitting in the box. Anyone know how necessary these are? Should I take it back apart to put these in? I might have to, I don't see any leaks, but I'm not convinced yet. The coolant level has been ever so slightly low after the two drives I've taken it on, could be air bubbles, but I don't know yet.