help replacing thermostat

My wife's thermostat in her 02 Venture is going out and I need to replace it. Any help? Thanks.

I just did one on my '01 Venture. It is pretty straight forward. Remove everthing in front of the intake opening(MAF, ducting, and air box) The t-stat housing is right below the intake opening. It is behind the exhaust crossover pipe and is a very tight fit to unbolt the housing, just use a wrench (no room for a socket). I dont know what problems you are having but the new t-stat did not fix my overheating/erratic temp gauge issues. Good luck.

Thanks for the reply. Is it on the drivers side or pass side of vehicle? I think I see where it is, and where I am looking is on the drivers side. I had my check engine light come on so I went to autozone since they do free diagnostics. The error code said to check the coolant level, faulty thermostat, or ETC sensor was faulty. Since my coolant level was fine, I am moving to the thermostat. That is also what a friend of mine who works on cars said. I will probably have him fix it if it's too much for me to do.

Follow the upper radiator hose. As it goes towards the engine, you'll see it attach to a cast metal housing. This is the thermostat housing. You'll need to remove that to get to the thermostat.

I would actually go for the coolant sensor before going for the thermostat. The sensor costs less then 20 and is a quick replacement. Relatively easy to get to it. I would much rather pay a little more and rule out the easy fix then go for the cheaper item, but a lot more labor.

The other thing you can do is feel the upper radiator hose after the engine has ran for a while. If it's hot but the gauge says it's cold, it's not the thermostat. But if it never gets hot, then I'd suspect a thermostat stuck open.

Hey cdru-
I have read a lot of your advice to people with venture van problems. You really seem to know what you are talking about. I have all the symptoms of a bad head gasket/intake gasket. How can I narrow it down to which one? I thought I should just replace both to make sure I fix the problem, but what do you think?
Thanks!!

CDRU - thanks for the reply. Let me ask you a question. When her van is cold (such as in the morning), when she starts it, it makes an awefully load ticking noise from under the hood. As the engine warms up,the ticking stops. Since you seem to know a lot about Venture vans, would you suspect a faulty thermostat stuck open? If not, what would you think is the problem? Her check engine light came on, and we had a diagnostic run on it and it said 1) faulty thermostat, and/or 2) faulty ECT sensor. Thanks for all the help.

Hey cdru-
I have read a lot of your advice to people with venture van problems. You really seem to know what you are talking about.I've just had to deal with them alot. Actually take my advice with a grain of salt...I discovered I have a new coolant leak somewhere. :)

I have all the symptoms of a bad head gasket/intake gasket. How can I narrow it down to which one? I thought I should just replace both to make sure I fix the problem, but what do you think?
Thanks!!The presence of exhaust gases in your coolant would be a dead giveaway for a head gasket leak. Exhaust gases can't mix with the coolant with an intake leak. Looking at spark plug conditions or stuffing a long swap into the cylinder and checking for the presence of liquid also would be telling of an head. A compression check and/or leak down test might point more towards a intake leak, but a low compression and high leak down could also be symptoms of worn seals or rings and not a head gasket problem.

In order to do the heads, you have to do the intake manifold. Doing the heads is an extra $200 if you have the heads resurfaced. It also is an extra 4-6 hours of labor I'd estimate.

I'm not made of money and while my time is free, I don't often have a lot of free time so I personally wouldn't do the head gaskets just for grins and giggles, I'd have to know that that was what was wrong. That being said, I can also tell you that you have no idea how much it sucks to spend a weekend doing the intake gasket only to learn a few days later that your head gasket just went and you have to redo it all the next weekend.

CDRU - thanks for the reply. Let me ask you a question. When her van is cold (such as in the morning), when she starts it, it makes an awefully load ticking noise from under the hood. As the engine warms up,the ticking stops.My van also ticks. It's the lifters that are worn and they'll continue to do that until the oil warms up and flows a little better.

Since you seem to know a lot about Venture vans, would you suspect a faulty thermostat stuck open? If not, what would you think is the problem? Her check engine light came on, and we had a diagnostic run on it and it said 1) faulty thermostat, and/or 2) faulty ECT sensor. Thanks for all the help.Does the upper radiator hose get hot? If it does, then the theromstat likely is working correctly. It's been my experience that in cold weather if the thermostat is stuck open the upper hose never gets hot.

If it get's hot, go for the sensor. You can also test the resistance of the sensor using a multimeter. I don't know the values right off the top of my head though.

If you are just going to guess at what is wrong, I would also go with the sensor. It's the easiest of the two to replace and doesn't require you to drain the entire system (although it will leak some when you do remove the sensor).

My van also ticks. It's the lifters that are worn and they'll continue to do that until the oil warms up and flows a little better.

Does the upper radiator hose get hot? If it does, then the theromstat likely is working correctly. It's been my experience that in cold weather if the thermostat is stuck open the upper hose never gets hot.

If it get's hot, go for the sensor. You can also test the resistance of the sensor using a multimeter. I don't know the values right off the top of my head though.

If you are just going to guess at what is wrong, I would also go with the sensor. It's the easiest of the two to replace and doesn't require you to drain the entire system (although it will leak some when you do remove the sensor).

Thanks for the reply. i'll check the hose.