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My 2005 Yukon XL

Places like amazon aka jungle site and RA all do the chineesium copies. I got burnt out on my 95 with the steering and suspension parts redoing it all about 3 times over due to chineese junk from the local auto parts.

did both upper and lower control arms, tie rods and what not only to have to go back and replace ball joints one by one as they failed within a few months. had one lower lock up making it hard to steer. later had to do upper control arm bushings on one side and quickly found out the new arms hole for the bushings were different and wouldn't fit the replacement OEM bushings! luckily I had kept my old arms. now most everything has been sorted out except for needing a new gear box and for whatever reason it eats idler arm brackets for lunch! I've replaced it about 4 times now with delco units and still only lasts about 4 months before it gets sloppy again! I wish I had bought the super steer unit before they discontinued it.
 
Wow, this morning was amazing having heat sooner. Was 37 degrees ambient leaving the house at 0620. Highway travel this morning the truck ran 206 degrees similarly to yesterday.

Called our 2 local dealers and they dont have the thermostat on the shelf, would take a day or 2 to receive from initial order. From what I can find this thermostat was used basically 1999 through 2010, so assuming being so old its not something they mess with on the regular anymore. I scoured several local parts suppliers including AutoZone, Advance, O'Reilly, Carquest and finally NAPA. Our main location actually has the AC Delco part in stock for $34. Fingers crossed.

I did rince the general petcock area on the radiator as for now my plan is to reuse the coolant. Today is going to be nearly 70 degrees so I want to get this swapped today. Tonight we drop into the 20's and only reach 40 tomorrow.
 
I ended up grabbing the supposed OEM from NAPA. Needed to get this swapped quickly at work today over lunch.
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Got it swapped into the housing and installed without fuss.
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Performed bleeding/burping just as I did yesterday. The same exact ride home resulted in temps 198-200. Interesting as ambient temps were near 70 today!
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do the pot of water on the stove test on the old one with a meat thermometer watching it. see what that yields. honestly the best way is to suspend it in the water with some string so it's not on the bottom of the pot where the stove element or flames are to get an accurate test.
 
dbrannon79 said:
drop the stat in a pot of hot water with a candy thermometer to watch when it opens and how hot till it's fully open. do this before installing. later do this same test on the one you already installed.
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I always pry them open then poke a piece of store string into them and use a clothes pin to hang them off the side of the kettle and in the water, then when they start to open they fall off the string.
Then start monitoring the temperatures until they are full wide open.
 
dbrannon79 said:
do the pot of water on the stove test on the old one with a meat thermometer watching it. see what that yields. honestly the best way is to suspend it in the water with some string so it's not on the bottom of the pot where the stove element or flames are to get an accurate test.
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I will try to!

I did find why the original failed. It's definitely the rubber that deteriorated. You can see light around the sealing area.
 
BigDogYJ said:
curious what your trans temps are while plowing?
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Worst I have seen for trans temp was in the 190's while plowing a few driveways in a row. Normal for the Yukon cruising seems to be 150's.

I usually plow in 4lo if there is any meaningful snow accumulation. I keep a close eye on temps knowing this isn't the optimum plow rig. I think if I could get a tune to lower the electric fan trigger points I wouldn't have any temp issues. For now I just monitor and deal with it.
 
MrMarty51 said:
I always pry them open then poke a piece of store string into them and use a clothes pin to hang them off the side of the kettle and in the water, then when they start to open they fall off the string.
Then start monitoring the temperatures until they are full wide open.
Click to expand...
No. Don’t do that.
We had a class from Delco and they taught forcing one open damages the wax or bimetallic- no matter which type it is. The bimetallic was easy to see how it did damage. It would actually bend the softer of the two metals. The wax one he described the damage by imagining you have a thick pancake batter and whip it too much then it changes viscosity so it won’t cook right. Forcing the wax actually changes its viscosity and the metal piston part can be bent inside if it doesn’t move parallel.
 
On your cooling fans, you can bypass the ECM on them without any ill effects or even add an extra controller keeping the ECM in the loop. I have this controller on my 95 controlling the electro-viscous fan clutch, but it's made for electric cooling fans. it's design is for dual fans and includes an override for the AC.

This one uses a sensor with 1/8" pipe thread. Haden also offers the same controller with a "stick in" sensor that you push into the fins of the radiator if you don't want to drill and tap into a coolant passage on the engine.

 
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Will L. said:
No. Don’t do that.
We had a class from Delco and they taught forcing one open damages the wax or bimetallic- no matter which type it is. The bimetallic was easy to see how it did damage. It would actually bend the softer of the two metals. The wax one he described the damage by imagining you have a thick pancake batter and whip it too much then it changes viscosity so it won’t cook right. Forcing the wax actually changes its viscosity and the metal piston part can be bent inside if it doesn’t move parallel.
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Good then that I never tried to reuse them.
Always installed new ones just due to the fact that it was already drained and apart and I’m not going to have to go through that again in a few days just because a thermostat failed.
 
I've had bad luck on the 95 with thermostats. nothing wrong with them, but every time I've had to drain the coolant for other work, I've had to go back and replace the thermostat. after a drain and refill it would always start sticking, heating up close to 200-210 before opening and dropping temp. Not sure what causes that, but "knock on wood" I've drained and flushed the 93, refilled it without replacing it's stat and it hasn't done that yet!
 
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