I have a 97' 1500 with the 360 automatic. It's about 90* here today and it's running around 225-230 around town. Any thoughts on this and where should it be running? I plan on towing a boat with it this summer and imagine it will rise alot with a load on in the hot weather..Thanks,

 

that's hotter than normal and approaching overheating. i'd recommend flushing the block, htr core, and radiator with a whole lot of clean water. changing thermostat to 180* (and test in a pot of water before install). also for towing, if you don't already have one put on an external trans cooler (and filter too). mine runs a nice steady 180 even sitting in traffic with a/c on. i'm not sure about your 360 but my 318 had block drain plugs tucked in beside the motor mounts on each side that allowed me to flush the block. your thermostat may be sticking or only partially opening, maybe rusted up.

 

how do you know how hot it runs? lol stupid question

 

Ifyou havent replace the fan clutch do so, thats helps...

 

The radiator was supposedly changed about a year ago to solve an overheating problem the former owner had with it. I don't know what else he may have tried to do to fix it, but apparently it didn't work. I've had the truck for about 6 months now and of course it had no problem during the winter months. He did say the fan clutch was replaced first in an effort to solve the problem, but that didn't work, so that's when he replaced the radiator (Maybe) and that solved it (Not). The fan clutch is supposedly a heavy duty model, if there is such a thing. It roars for about the first mile when you drive it either cold or hot after sitting a bit. Don't know if that's the way it's suppose to be or not. Never had any other vehicle do that....

 

has thermostat been changed ? if you haven't changed it i'd recommend that. while you have the housing off grind off the stupid FRONT tab which forces you to take off a bunch of stuff to get it off. if that doesn't fix it try temporarily running with no thermostat and see if it will cool down. if not, something else is going on. could be a terrible rust, sludge, scale, crud problem stopping up the rad.

 

Thanks for the advice. Don't know if the stat has been changed, but I will do that first. Hopefully it is something simple. What range should I be seeing as far as normaltemps in hot weather and if the stat doesn't help, what would be the next step to look at? Does that sound like normal fan clutch operation?

 

Thats the norm for the fan clutch to do that... next would be thermostat.. or pressure check ... or just maybe the switch is not working right and giving a false reading of a high temp ?

 

put in a 180 stat. temps should run 180-190 and stay well down under the 210 tick mark on the gauge. if not, then temporarily remove the stat and see what it does. then report back and we'll go from there.

 

If I remember right, I saw a tutorial on removing the thermostat on here. Does anyone know where it is? Thanks,