rev the engine a little with the cap off and the p side nose as high as your **** will allow.. revving is the key imHo..

 

Ok thanks. I did rev it a little but I'll try it again. I wonder if part of the problem is if the thermostat isn't opening enough. As soon as the temp hits 180 it drops to around 170. Even in the Florida heat I can't get it any hotter. When I was pulling the trailer up a mountain it got up to 194- which I would assume the thermostat was all the way open then. After that was when the temp gauge began to fluctuate. Should I maybe try blocking off the radiator with a piece of cardboard or something to try and get it hotter?

 

What temp stat is in there at the moment?

 

NOOOOOOOOO !!!

I'd grab one of those infrared heat sensing guns at the parts store (no more than $30), and shoot the radiator with it- to see what the true temperature is.. unless that thing found itself a new heat exchange somewhere, I'd guess that it's either the stat is sticking open, the gauge is wrong, or the sensor/sender is whacked.. the PCM is already agreeing with the gauge, so that leaves stat sticking open, or sensor/sender is bad..

did you swap stat's yet? if so, did you test it before you loaded it? that's bitten me several times.. grrrrrrrr.

 

Burping these trucks is not rocket surgery, and all these gyrations of parking on 50º inclines or jacking the passenger side is not needed.

 

my truck runs cold as heck, but I have a 180* thermostat in there. Winter is a cold time for me.


There could be lots of things that factor in. if you have more water than coolant in your radiator mix, you will run cooler because water transfers heat better than propylene glycol.

 

It's a 180 stat. About a month old. I tested it before I put it in and it was fine. I'm running it very close to 50/50 water/antifreeze. After I start it up cold once the stat opens the bottom hose is still not very hot. Warm but not hot. After driving it a while both hoses are the same temp.

 

^^ Gee, no wonder your engine is running so cold. Ditch that 180º POS.

 

When I initially burped it after plenum, water pump, tc nd all I didn't jack it up- was sitting level and it was fine for a few weeks or more until I was coming back to FL from TN.

 

a 180* thermostat will do that.

A good thing to do is to get an electric fan system. That way, you can limit the efficiency of your cooling system. Dual fan setups ussually have temp sensors to turn on only one fan at a cetrain temp, and then to turn on both at another temp. SOme even go so far as to control SPEED of the fans per the temp.

I think i will be getting this setup within the next year:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Dodge...item27bcbb7eb5

It has the fan speed controller. And a switch that senses if the AC compressor is running. Then it will automatically go 100% for the fans.

Good for winter so you can run one fan and still have heat.