Thermostat ball bleed valve ever closing? (pics)

[Extreme-Duty]

I am posting some low quality pics of what UPS brought me the other day. A Mahle/Behr TX93-83D thermostat with a ball type bleed valve. I intend to use it as an upgrade for an old German 3 cyl. IH tractor. The OEM thermostat has a 3 mm bleed hole, making it run too cold (common with German IHs) unless you sort of unleash all 45 horses on a +90F day.

Just for the records, the main application for the thermostat is Fiat/Iveco and Peugeot vans with 2 - 3 litre diesel engines.

If you take a look at pic #3, there is this tiny ball in a fairly large ID. pipe end. With that much clearance, how is the ball ever going to get enough float to close the valve properly? It seems useless when water pump output is low at low engine rpm.

Do you think a jiggle pin works better?

Regards,

ED

 

[edwardh1]

seems anything that lets some water through would be fine, to allow circulation and better heat measurement.
-not many fiat and peugeot vans in US.

I had an isuzu once its oem had a jiggle valve, the gates replacement had NO valve, so I drilled a really small hole in the tstat plate to allow some flow.

 

[Trav]

The ball never seals and neither does a jiggle valve they are just to assist in bleeding air from the system.
The small hole allows an insignificant amount of bypass.

Always position the valve at the top if mounted vertical or towards the hose neck if horizontal.