Re-Filling Coolant, does the air relief plug work well??

[Pathofinder]

Id imagine the thermostat is operating, its a brand new oem unit, came already installed with a thermostat installed in a brand new oem neck. I may or may not have idled to operating temp I dont know, it was 10 minutes max but its very cold outside, I just know the lower rad hose was still cold.

There is a small exhaust leak is what youre heading in the video, will get a new gasket come spring time, the leak is very small but caused by a snapped off exhaust manifold bolt, engine sounds like it purrs to me in real life actually, my husband was the one that noticed the off noise and spotted the exhaust leak area

Id just like to get this cooling system sorted, purged, and perfect running

[ARKQX33V6]

10 minutes will get you some heat, but the cold hose compared to the hot is no good, the top hose should be hot and it's a sudden thing as when the T stat opens, the hose goes from cold cool to hot as coolant flows through.

With the car at temp, revving the engine will cause the coolant pump to force coolant through the rad and if all air is out then there will be no displacement of air and no further dropping of coolant in the throat of the rad cap.

The engine will crack sound as it heats up, if it is over heating you will smell the excess heat with a faint coolant smell. Your temp gauge should be 1/2 way.

A normal hot engine will have both rad hoses the same temperature by human feel, hot. If you have an IR remote temperature sensor you would see the difference.

[Pathofinder]

So it is normal for the coolant to look like it isnt moving when idling with the cap off UNTIL the thermostat opens up? Or should the coolant always be visibly moving with the rad cap off and the engine running

Maybe I just didnt let it warm up enough, but the opper hose was getting very hot, but like I said we dont have a fan connected so I dont want to idle for long or drive the vehicle.

The engine will crack sound as it heats up, if it is over heating you will smell the excess heat with a faint coolant smell. Your temp gauge should be 1/2 way.

All you can really smell is the coolant steaming off where it is pooled at the bottom of the outside of the rad from doing the flushes and fill up since some spilled, and Im assuming was steaming/burning away while we idled the car

[Pathofinder]

Is it possible for the thermostat to be "air locked" and not be openning??

[ARKQX33V6]

Coolant at times will appear to be stopped at the fill cap but a running engine at temperature will if correct have an open T stat allowing greater volume of coolant to flow but the engine usually must be revved up. The coolant pump is a positive displacement pump and the higher it revs the greater the displacement, thus at highway speeds more coolant circulates to cool the more BTU the engine puts out. The engine is inefficient and creates heat from about 75% of the fuel, that is why the rad is so big to try and cool the coolant at 220 F to some lower temperature by the cooler ambient air.

An air lock by its nature is trapped air under compression from the heat and the 1 atmosphere in positive pressure to increase the boiling point can not hinder the operation of a thermostat. By its very nature the thermostat is operated by differential temperature. When cold to cool the T stat is closed and only by-pass coolant can flow. This is a small amount of fluid flowing because you must keep coolant flowing in an enclosed circuit. This allows the engine to heat up faster. When the engine approaches the set point of the T stat the thermostat begins opening to allow a greater flow of coolant to allow a greater cooling effect, it eventually opens to its full extent and allows maximum cooling, if in backwards coolant flow will be hampered and overheating will take place.

Also if anyone who did not care for the engine worked on the cooling system foreign objects within the cooling system could be found and blocking flow of coolant.

The rest of the systems to monitor the temperature of the coolant are designed based on average and highest temperatures achieved and the set points for these devices are set at temperatures usually expected. These devices could be the temperature gauge, the transmission over drive cut off, the coolant temperature to allow idling and others as in the ECU.