[Nevadan]

So here's my question, and this has been discussed here before.

With the thermostat cold, as shown in the first picture, the back of the t-stat is not closing the hole in the block which allows cold coolant to be sucked out of the head (as shown in the second picture), apparently close to where it's being pumped into the block. If the heater is off, the cable operated valve being closed, there's no coolant coming out of the back of the head/block, thus the coolant would seem to pool up and heat up at the back of the head and block while the circulating coolant around cylinders 1, 2 and 3 heats up more slowly.

In the second picture you can see the hole coming down from the head, which is where it's pulling the water from, so there's circulation near the first three cylinders and the corresponding part of the head.

When the coolant is hot the problem appears to be even worse since the back of the thermostat closes that hole and the only flow has to come from the back of the block, which wouldn't happen if the heater is off. I may be too tired and have missed something; is there another passage coming out of the block??

So my question is: how does the coolant circulate to and through the back of the head/block when the heater is off?

I'm considering plumbing in something so there's ALWAYS circulation to/through the back of the block/head even when the heater's off.

Has anyone done something similar?