A salute to the jiggle valve

[wemslie97]

I decided to do a semi controlled experiment.
I had the feeling from reading on this excellent and informative forum that the jiggle valve in my coolant thermostat was at 12 oclock instead of 6 oclock. I bought new Toyota red coolant and a new 82C OEM thermostat to put in. After draining the green stuff and pulling the thermostat (sure enough the jiggle was at 12 o'clock) I decided that because everything looked clean I would save the new thermostat, flush and change to red, and instead refill with fresh green and reinstall the old thermostat as it looked good and was an exact (maybe original) match to the new one. Whamo! At running temp I went from 198°-208° with the heat on to 189° steady with the heat off! why does this happen? I don't have a clue. The only thing that changed aside from fresher coolant (the coolant had been in for 19k miles) was that almighty jiggle valve at 6 oclock instead of 12!!
Sorry for the long winded story but...You've done it again jiggle valve!

 

[GrassFed]

Thanks for sharing. It is helpful to see that such a minor change can help us keep temps down, especially as we're coming into summer

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

 

[mtbtim]

I just changed my thermostat too. I noticed the jiggle valve was at the 3 o'clock position before I pulled the old one out. I was running 190 degrees temps before, and after putting in the new thermostat with the jiggle valve at the 6 o'clock position, I'm getting the same temps. Maybe it only changes the temps if the jiggle valve is closer to the 12 0'clock position?

 

[wemslie97]

Sounds like maybe the jiggle valve anywhere in the southern hemisphere does the trick. And it doesn't seem to matter whether my heat is on or off. My running temperature stays between 189° and 191°. 3 degree variance is remarkable.