The galvanic corrosion would happen from the inside, regardless of where the jeep lives, that’s the concern being constantly submerged in water. If a steel freezeplug seizes, who cares, it’s doing it job twice I guess, lol. The point is, easy access to perform service. Easier it is the more likely you’ll be to perform the proper service …. Properly. I can tell you that perfect rust free desert SBC 350s will give you a HEKKOVA time removing their drain plugs, luckily they’re external hex.
Sounds like a plan for the thermostat. Just don’t buy a Mr Gasket knockoff, additionally, test them in a pan before installing! I do this and never found a “bad” thermostat until I tried the Mr Gasket, looks like the same but in my case opened early. Maybe a fluke. But I bough 5 Robert shaws and watched them all open in unison …
So you see, both you and I can characterize what is going on with the cooling system with the stock gauge. Yes, we’ll never know if the coolant is 230 or 210, but who cares, it’s not overheating or “too hot”. But I can see that configuration A is warmer than configuration B. That’s all I need to know. Also, I can tell my current configuration runs the “coolest” I’ve ever experienced in a TJ. With AC on and in the heat, the needle barely heads north of the 210 dot. What that temperature is exactly, I don’t know. But I know where all my other TJs needles escalate to in similar situations, usually a couple needle widths past the 210 dot, still acceptable.
Also, keep in mind that these TJs ran 3 different computer systems with 3 different methods of reporting data to the cluster. 97-99, 2000-04 and 05-06. I’ve owned 1 98 and the other 5 were 05-06. I feel like the 98 was a more honest set of gauges. I wonder if when going to a hemi swap or tuning a TJ that ALL gauge filtering can be removed for a pure measurement.
