Jack, actually, you did post to the group.  Your description of the thermostat being able to modulate, and open just the right amount?  Whenever I've tested one in a pot of water on a stove, it opened fully as the water heated, but as it cooled, it closed slowly, as if it might be doing as you suggested.  Maybe I got it too hot too fast for that phenomenon to fully reveal itself on the way up, but the cool down was more gradual.

But, I have had the experience of very low temperatures and high speeds keeping the temperature down on more than one vehicle.  My father's '53 Chevy had to have a wind block whenever the temperature was below about 10 F.  My camper benefits if the temperature is around 0 F or colder, when driven at highway speed but is ok without it at town speeds.  I don't think automotive thermostat technology has changed much if at all since the fifties.

Just my 2 cents, and probably worth what you paid me.

mcneely

---- Rocket J Squirrel <camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> Hi Scott -- before I pester the group with a question that might be
> common knowlege, I figure I could pester you with it first?
>
> People write about putting cardboard in front of the radiator. I think,
> "I don't get it. The thermostat isn't an on-off switch, doesn't it open
> just as much as needed to keep the coolant at the right temperature? If
> the coolant coming back from the radiator is darn cold, won't the
> thermostat just crack open a bit?"
>
> Or maybe it does a poor job regulating temperature when it has to do
> that "crack open a little bit" thing.
>
> --
> Jack "Rocket j Squirrel" Elliott
> 1984 Westfalia, auto trans,
> Bend, Ore.

--
David McNeely