Mine is labeled 130 at the cold end, 260 at the hot end, and 210 in the middle. My temperature needle runs to the left of the "2" of 210, about halfway between the beginning of the "normal" range and the 210 mark. It appears like this would be about 180*F. I suspect that a previous owner swapped in a 180*F thermostat. To you guys who have done this, does your temperature needle about match where mine runs -- just to the left of where the "2" in 210 is?

I figure the stock thermostat produces a needle reading of close to straight up, or maybe slightly to the left.

 

Mine is the factory temp, and is slightly to the left as you stated.

 

Slightly to the left of straight up and down...or over to the left of where "210" starts?

Thanks.

 

mine does not have temp degrees printed on it, but runs a little left of straight up

 

my guage is the same as yours. it was just about in the middle between the 130 and 210 marks until i put a 180* stat in...now it is about 3needle widthabove the 130 mark. i would say according to how much mine moved after i changed out mine, that you have a 195*

 

'K, thanks guys.

 

its a dodge/ford thing, they like to keep ya guessin what ur motor is realy doin

 

yeah mine does also but i have a question for you know. where does your oil pressure guage run? (should be top right) but mine is on the highest normal line. let me know if you have the same problem

 

I've got a 5.2 with 168,000 miles. When I first start in the morning, the oil pressure rises to a few needle width's above 40. When driving, it'll usually be slightly above 40. Stopped, at a warm idle, it'll be about halfway between the lower normal line and 40. If you try to interpolate the gauge's scale, that seems to be in the 20-30 range, but I know the oil pressure is much lower than that. Spec from Dodge is in the single digits atwarm idle (and there's no reason to have any more oil pressure than that, at idle). In general, you typically want about 10 PSI for every 1000 in RPM. That is, 10 PSI @ 1000 RPM, 20 PSI @ 2000 RPM, etc. According to the gauge, these trucks make way more than that, but I think the gauge is more of an "animated dummy light", rather than an actual gauge, like the tachometer.