How to Replace Thermostat 2007-14 Chevrolet Suburban

Hi, I'm Mike from 1A Auto. We've been selling auto parts for over 30 years.

In this video we well be removing and reinstalling a thermostat and housing in a 2009 Chevy Suburban. If you need parts for your vehicle, click the link in the description, head over to 1AAuto.com.

We're going to remove this cover. Just grab underneath, pull up, and then you're going to pull out. Going to have to wiggle it a little bit and it'll come right out. That's where it's secured down and these clips that hold that in.

Next we're going to remove this snorkel. We have one clamp right here. We're going to use an 8mm socket and extension. Loosen that up and over here, it's a one clamp right here. Do the same. Now we're going to take a trim tool and over here where the hose is secured we're going to separate that. We're going to remove this hose that goes to the upper valve cover. Pull that out. And we're going to lift up right here and pull towards the front of the vehicle. And pull this off the air box. Pull that out of your way.

Now we're going to take the serpentine belt off. I'm going to use a 15mm wrench. You can use a serpentine belt tool, but we'll just use the wrench. You're going to put it on the adjuster. I'm going to pull it down. Now we're going to pull the belt off over here on the idler pulley. And then loosen up on the adjuster and pull our wrench out. Now take the belt off. Just pull it straight forward, just like that.

Next we're going to take off this radiator hose on the thermostat side. We're going to push this clamp together. We're going to use some channel locking pliers. Just grab it. They do make special pliers for this, but you can use channel locks. We're going to twist the hose back and forth. And you want to make sure you have a drain bucket underneath, because coolant's going to come out. Just hold it there.

Next we're going to take these bolts out. They're 10mm bolts. I'm going to use a 10mm socket, extension and a ratchet. There's two of these bolts. Take that bolt out. Take this other one out. That bolt out. Now we can grab the thermostat and pull it out. And more coolant's going to run out, because it's attached to the housing. Let's pull the thermostat out of the housing. You just pull it out just like that. It's the old thermostat with a gasket on it. Sometimes the thermostats come with the housing, sometimes they're separate.

To install the gasket, there's a little groove all the way around. You're going to set this little notch up near that breather. Stick that on and put the gasket all the way around, just like that. And we'll take the housing and the thermostat's going to go into the housing like this. And there's a little notch on the housing that lines up with the gasket notch. Push it in. Okay, this little breather is going to go to the top so the thermostat housing's going to be coming towards the passenger's side of the vehicle. The reason they have this little breather is so that air bubbles that are stuck inside the engine can get through.

We're going to install that now. Stick that back into the water pump housing. Start that 10mm bolt and then start the other 10mm bolt. We'll tighten these down. Snug that bolt down and snug the other bolt down. And then we're going to torque it. We're going to torque these bolts to 11 foot pounds.

Now we'll pull our lower radiator hose on. Just squeeze this and put it over the thermostat housing. Just wriggle it on. Put this last hose on. Slide that down and then here's the channel locks to get the clamp down.

We're going to start and put the belt on down at the crank pulley first. And then we're going to come over the water pump pulley and it's going to down the power steering pump pulley and going to go up on the alternator. And before we put it on our idler, we're going to put it over here on our tensioner. Then we're going to hold it down here as we grab our idler ... I mean our tensioner with our 15mm wrench. Going to pry up on the tensioner and slip the belt under the idler pulley.

Next we'll install the intake snorkel. Slide it down. We're going to slide it over this throttle bottle right here. We're going to watch this rubber grommet over here. We're going to pull up on it. Slide it back so that it's in and then it's in right here.

Next we're going to come over here, pull this onto the air box, like that. Over here a little retainer of the hose, just slide that in there, like that. And on the back side this hose that connects to the upper valve cover, pop that in. Now we'll take my 8mm socket, extension, and ratchet, tighten up this one clamp right here. Not too tight, just a little bit snug. And then same on this one. Snug it up. It's good. We're going to slide it underneath the hoses over here, the heater hoses. And then slide it back. And once it's back all the way, these little rubber grommets in here that line up with that ball and socket. And push down.

Next we'll pull off our coolant cap on our overflow tank or coolant reservoir. Now we're going to add our coolant. You want to make sure you use a 50/50 mix of coolant to water. Check the bottle of the coolant to make sure it's not pre-mixed. We're using a Dex-Cool coolant in this or a GM vehicles approved coolant. As you can see, that's where the fill line is. When we start the vehicle then it's going to suck more coolant into the vehicle. We're going to start it with the cap off. And as the vehicle runs, the coolant's going to go down and we're going to have to top off accordingly.

Now we're going to start it. As you can see it's sucked down all the coolant out of our bottle, so we're going to add more coolant. You want to keep in mind, checking the temperature while we're letting the coolant burp. You don't want to just start it and walk away. We're going to wait until the temperature gets up to about 210 degrees.

Another thing that's a good idea is to turn the heat on. We'll turn the heat on high. All the way up. And keep checking and make sure you get heat coming out. If there's no heat, then there's not enough coolant in the system and you need to add more coolant. We're going to check our coolant level. Make sure it's still above that line, which is good. And then carefully you're going to grab this radiator hose and this hose still feels cold. That means the thermostat still has not opened yet, so we're going to keep letting it run until it opens. As you can see, our vehicle's up to just about 210 degrees, which is good. Our heat is working well. And the thermostat has opened.

We're going, at this point, we're just going to shut the vehicle off and let it cool down. Alright, now our engine has cooled down and we're going to check our coolant level. A little bit high. What I'm going to do is I'm going to drop it down just above where the fill line is. And then I'm going to put the radiator cap on and then we're going to go for a test drive. And after we get back from about a 10 minute test drive, we'll adjust accordingly. Let it cool down again before we take this off. And then you'll be good to go.

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