You guys might be seeing a lot of posts by me as I'm a little paranoid about this truck. Today it was about 0 degrees outside and on the way to work the temperature gauge almost went to the hottest mark. I pulled over, let it sit for 5 minutes, and started it up again and the heat went back up and up and then just stopped and then fell to the normal mark. It seems like the thermostat is sticking. This is the first time it has done this and I'm betting it's because of the extreme cold.

What else could it be other than a sticking thermostat? I just don't want to replace the thermostat because I've already replaced 3 this year and coincidentally, all of my repairs seem to need done during the winter at 3 degrees outside. It really sucks.

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Now that I think about it, coolant reservoir is low (not empty) and that just reminded me that I could probably burp the cooling system if it is in air bubble causing this.

 

Low coolant or a leak in the system. A bad coolant sensor can cause that too. There are 2 one 1 wire for the gauge, one 2 wire for the computer. Replace the gauge one, $10 or so.
www.autozone.com

 

ditto on the air pocket possiblity. Also, make sure your coolant mixture doesn't have too much water in it, as in this cold weather, could freeze on you.

 

I'm going to try and burp it tonight. Today on the way to work it overheated and steamed out from under the hood. I hope I didn't blow a headgasket.

After this I was able to limp it and park it, and while parked the temp gauge rose to 3/4 of the way and then dropped to half, then rose to 3/4 and dropped to half and kept doing this as I revved the engine a bit. Any ideas what could cause this?

What's the likelihood I blew a headgasket? It overheated for less than a minute before I pulled over and turned the engine off. Oil pressure is sitting at the halfway mark on the gauge. I checked the oil and it still looks clean with no "late" coffee look, as I know it may look like when oil and coolant mix.

Sorry if I'm paranoid. WIth this truck there seems to be one problem after another, but I hope I can fix them before something major, like a headgasket, goes wrong.

 

my heater core was plugged last year, and was making my truck do the exact same thing when i used the heat. all i did to temporarily fix it was reverse the flow on the heater core. come summer time, i properly cleaned out the heater core and i havent had the problem since. try that with the heater core, and if that doesnt stop it, it could also be a plugged rad. but like i said, my heater core was plugged when my truck was doing that

 

Sounds plausible since the heating in this truck sucks. Unfortunately I won't be able to flush it where I'm at and to get to a spot where I can I'll have to drive 30 miles. I like in an apartment complex and don't have access to hoses to do the flushing.

How would reversing the flow work if it's completely blocked? Is there a way to bypass the core entirely? I know on my old 89 toyota I could just disconnect the 2 hoses going into the firewall and couple them together. Is this possible on this truck? Or would turning the cabin air from hot to cold work just the same?

 

Got a replacement t-stat and gasket and plan on replacing it tonight. 10 degrees outside. Yay!

-edit-

In the event that this does turn out to be a bad water pump, should I take it to a shop for that or is the timing belt easy to replace and get it timed? I've done entire headgaskets before, but not on an engine this big.

 

that happend to me about 2 weeks ago in that kind of cold, turned out my coolent water ratio wasnt correct (good to about 10 above ) It overheated and boiled a bunch out so I just drained the rest and filled her back up with hot water and coolent, no problems now and last night it was about -30 (windchill) and it started right up today besides the bumper getting #%#$ up being pulled outta drift

 

Last night I limped the truck home and checked the radiator and it was almost empty. I put in almost half of a coolant jug and it's just reaching the top of the fill next of the radiator, so it was definitely low on coolant. I'm still replacing the thermostat today or this weekend, but I think it might have been low coolant or that and improper coolant and water mixture.

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doing some research online for a thermostat replacement. Found this: http://bionicdodge.com/Download/Magn...%20Install.pdf

Is all of that really necessary? Removing belts, cables, hoses, etc... ? From the looks of it I just needed to remove one or two things. Of course, it was dark when I looked and I'm not familiar with this engine yet.

 

You can remove it with nothing removed. It is harder to do it though. It is best with at least the alternator removed.