It feels like a Saturday, and a really shitty one at that. I took half a day off work today to replace the thermostat on the Mazda, and it turned out being hellish. First, it took me forever to get the thermostat housing off, but putting it back on turned out to be worse. The Chilton's repair manual I was using is way inadequate when it comes to explaining exactly which parts to take apart--it failed to mention that the alternator, idler pulley, and alternator bracket would all have to be removed in order to turn a single bolt that holds the thermostat housing on. After I figured that out, one of the thermostat housing bolts stripped the bolt hole in the engine block, so after that happened, I just gave up for the day. I went out and bought a tap set so I can tap the hole out to ¼" and thread a new bolt in, but I wasn't about to work on it anymore today. I was to the point where I was throwing tools across the driveway, and I didn't want to take my anger out on the car. The sad thing about this whole thing is that the old thermostat seemed to be ok (it wasn't stuck open like I'd expected), so it looks like the heater core and and temp sender are both bad. Maybe it's time to by a Chevy...

That would be the last mistake you want to make.