jackstands are fine. I'm just not used to hearing people call them "axle stands". When you look under your car, you'll understand why it's not ok to support the car by the axles, lol.
You can do it in steps, just know that every time you open the coolant loop ie; replace a cooling system part, you need to bleed the system. You'd be surprised at how many people screw this up. The manual explains it pretty clearly and I even broke it down into steps, but people still have a difficult time removing all of the air. Like I said in your other thread, it often takes several attempts. This requires letting the engine reach operating temp and then completely cool before repeating the entire process. It's the way the radiator is designed with the expansion tank attached to it and it's orientation in relation to the engine that causes so much of a problem bleeding it. Most cars have the expansion tank located at the highest point of the cooling system so all of the air can travel up and out of the expansion tank. Our cars have the expansion tank attached to the radiator at a low point in relation to the engine. This causes any air to get trapped in the radiator which causes air lock. If you want to keep going through this hassle, then do it in steps.
Take a flashlight and look behind the engine between the firewall and cylinder head. Locate the plastic "Y" fitting. Ask yourself if you'd rather replace that "Y" fitting with the valve cover installed or removed. Now shine the light on the driver's side of the engine block and locate the "octopus" fitting. You can either do what a lot of people have done and remove the intake manifold, risk losing important parts, creating vacuum leaks, fuel leaks and your car never running right again. Or, you can remove the airbox, alternator and oil filter housing(replacing the two o-rings and paper gasket on a part that's prone to leak) and gain better access to the octopus fitting. Just saying, I can only offer advice, what you decide to do is entirely up to you.
We already know that your thermostat is sticking. So that should be addressed asap regardless of if you're going to do the rest of the stuff now or later. Just make sure you follow it with a proper bleed and watch that temp needle like a hawk.
As for tools, a metric socket set(deep and shallow) 1/4" and 3/8" drives, a metric combination wrench set, a torx driver set, a screwdriver set, a few sets of channel lock pliers in various sizes, some needle nose pliers, some side cutter pliers(dykes), a hammer, a 1/2" drive breaker bar with a 1/2" to 3/8" adapter, an inch lbs torque wrench, a foot lbs torque wrench, a jack, a work light, a workbench, a drain pan, a funnel, a oil filter wrench size "B", an e36 Haynes manual and an e36 Bentley manual, also an OBDII code reader/scantool is nice to have as well. You can pick up a nice one with live data for about $125. That should be enough to get you started.
Last edited by cooljess76; 09-14-2012 at 07:21 AM. | 
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