2.3L ('83-'97) Thermostat Sealing

[oldgeek]

I watched this video that the thermostat does not seal well in the housing and this guy's solution.

Thoughts?

 

[scotts90ranger]

That's roughly what I found on my '97, dumb fact, the t stat housing he got is a Motorad part (I got the same one), got a Motorad thermostat too (couldn't find Motorcraft at the time) and the dang things didn't fit together AT ALL, not even close to sealing. I took a hammer to the housing inner ring thing, pliers, made an aluminum spacer, it got dumb... then I looked on the bench and saw the Motorcraft T stat I put in a couple years before trying to solve the same problem and it fit pretty good... I hesitated to do the O ring thing he did because I didn't want them to escape... I ended up tweaking those two fingers on the back so they hit the head. This solved my issues with the temp gauge, I still don't have any heater output but I've narrowed that down to the heater core, I've just been putting off that 4 hour job because time is scarce... at this point I'm going to try to fit it in before fall...

 

[oldgeek]

If I remember correctly, I had to push the thermostat into the housing. I'm thinking the housing is original.