I need to change the thermo housing on my 2002 X-Type 3.0 Any suggestions?

 

Hi, Jag, welcome to the forums. You will find a wealth of information here and friendly members that are always willing to help.

As for your question, if you do a quick search on here there are several threads that talk about that very thing with pictures.

When you have a moment please stop by the New Member section at the top of the main page and give a brief introduction.

 

Jag2002, replacing the housing is pretty basic. the hardest part will be getting the coolant drained out of your car. But, even that is pretty easy. In short, get the front end of your car up in the air so you can crawl under it (support it on jack stands), drain out the coolant, disconnect the lower hose coming out of the thermostat housing and slide the hose out of the way, remove the 3 bolts holding the thermostat in place.

Now, a bit of caution, the thermostat is not where you would normally expect it to be (atleast for me it wasn't). The thermostat is located between the radiator and the engine, to the side of the catalytic converter. It is pretty much centerline of your car. You will see the coolant hose coming under the car and shooting straight up by the radiator. You follow that hose, you will see a black plastic football in this hose. That is the thermostat.

 

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lifeonplanetvon, based on the age of the car, replacing hoses is always going to be a good thing. Now, for your second question of "is the thermostat and the thermostat housing the same thing"? Let me ask this, is the intake an intake or is the intake the motor? The thermostat sits inside the thermostat housing. If you buy the thermostat housing, it will most likely come with a thermostat (kinda like, if you buy a motor, it will come with an intake). But, you can buy only the thermostat (do not forget to get a new thermostat housing o-ring). There are 3 bolts that hold the 2 halves of the housing together with couplings on the ends for the hoses to attach to. From there, you are just needing to make sure to reinstall the thermostat in the correct direction. Unless the thermostat housing is showing signs of failure (ie, cracks or is leaking), you should be good. I cannot recall anyone suffereing from a failed housing. It is built pretty robust (unlike some other parts of the coolant system).