The specifications for the 1800E states that the cooling system has a capacity of about 2.2 gallons. My car took about 1.5 gallons of coolant after the heater and radiator install, which can only mean there's still some air in the system that needs to be expelled. My car's manual did mention that it may take a long while of normal driving to completely bleed the system. I took the car out for a spin around the neighborhood this evening to get coolant circulating and to test the heater. Idle is still rough and erratic, presumably from condensation in the fuel system - so I dumped a bottle of iso-HEET water remover into the fuel tank, and hopefully that problem will go away after awhile. Oh, and I also bought a bottle of Chevron Techron to clean the fuel system and fuel injectors. The boys on the 1800List forum seem to go ape-shit on the stuff, so I thought "what the heck" - can't hurt right?
The good news is the heater works great, the blower is strong, and it's now pleasant to drive in the winter. The bad news - I discovered that once the engine reaches normal operating temperatures, it'll stall once my foot is off the gas pedal! Everything is fine when I'm driving except for when I take my foot of the gas pedal to slow down or stop at an intersection, the engine idles low and eventually stalls. This happened twice when I was driving around this evening. On the second time, the engine refused to start. Luckily, I was only 50 yards away from my driveway, so I pushed it the rest of the way home.
About a couple of hours later, the car started again on the first try. I suspect a bad thermostat - the one thing I didn't change when I overhauled the entire cooling system. The engine however, didn't show any signs of overheating - temmperature gauge normal, oil pressure normal, no steam or smoke from the engine. Who knows? I'll try replicating the problem another day.
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