I wanted to share a little hint I discovered about the 180 degree thermostat. This is the first winter I have had it. When the weather started to get colder - 30's and 40's - I got a check engine light on the way home one night. I pulled the code with my Hypertech and got a P1281 temp cool code. I had wondered about that. I covered half the radiator with cardboard and have had no further problem. FYI.....

 

Good to know! I heven't gotten around to putting mine in yet. My friend's ford has his stuck open and his light just cam on, happens every winter. I told him he could replace the $10 part, but my recomendation is that he scrap the ford and get a RAM!!!

 

Back in the day young feller......

The design engineers picked 195 degrees as the best temp to run your engine at (I don't know why). So everything was designed or turn around that temp. We used to put cardboard over our rads in Canada as well but, it can lead to a hole in you hood. Buddy Doug decided to put a strip of cardboard along the top of his rad to help keep some heat in. His wheels had a "flex" fan installed. I can't say if it was stock or aftermarket. One day while driving he heard a big bang. He stoped and found a chung of metal sticking out of his hood. Turned out to be a flex fan blade. What they think caused it to fracture was as the fan was rotating behind the rad. THe pressure or suction was different behind the cardboard than it was where there was no cardboard. Causing the blades to flex forward and aft as well as in pitch. Eventualy the metal fatigued and the blade departed. You be the Judge. FYI. PS Doug was a bow tie guy...LOL

 

Its gotten to mid 20's here and my truck is pretty low in the operating range on the gauge.....I will have to see what it does once it gets really cold.

 

The code you got has nothing to do with the fact that your t-stat is a 180. You would have gotten the same code with a 195 t-stat. The code means that you never reached minimum operating temp, (which is around 170-175 I believe), so you never reached a temp where your 180 tstat opened anyway. If you had a 195, it wouldn't have opened either, so the temp range of the t-stat is not a factor here at all. I would wonder if your t-stat is stuck open. That would cause the engine to never reach correct operating temp because coolant is flowing to the radiator and staying too cold. By blocking the radiator, you forced it to heat up to at least min operating temp.

 

If the thermostat isn't stuck open then the Engine Coolant Temperature sensor could be reading a little low. If it's a little low (like 10*) then it might give you a code now with the 180 (PCM seeing 170*), but would have been fine with the 195* (PCM seeing 185*). The temp here has been dropping below 15* F and I haven't got a code yet running 180* thermostat. Since it seems some trucks will through a code and other won't, it was one of the thoughts I had on why that might be.

 

yeah been running with the 180 for a bit and it's gotten below 30 here so no problems so far and no codes. Just takes a bit longer to heat up and doesn't blow as hot

 

ive installed the 180 and got the code also. changed it to 195 and no problem at all.

 

Well, I went and pulled the radiator cap off and ran it for a while. It took quite a while, but the thermostat finally opened and the rad coolant started circulating and got hot. So the t-stat is NOT stuck open. Might be the coolant sensor. I'll see if the code comes up again in the next few days. Cardboard is staying in - but thanks for the warning