I saw that you raised the whole front end, but what you need to do is raise only the passenger side to get the filler neck up higher than rest of the radiator. Warm the engine up and slowly add fluid as the air escapes. These trucks are finicky when there is air in the system. Have you tried a pressure test on the coolant system?

 

Fan is spinning fine, shroud is in good shape.
​​​​​​
ill try doing the passengers side lift this weekend. I did order a replacement rad as looking down inside you can see brown sludge plugging the first viewable 5 passages. I haven't done a pressure test no, it's crossed my mind. However the system seems to hold pressure fine, as when I take the rad cap off these past two nights it's suctioned on there quite well.

I'm wondering if my clogged up rad trapped air into the system when I initially changed out the thermostat a while ago. The previous owner of think mixed coolant or didn't take very good care of the system as looked sluggy in there.

 

Only problem with that is that if it's sludgy in the rad, the entire system could be compromised. Definitely a good place to start though.

Fire up the parts cannon!

 

Yep, it's soaking now, new rad, pump (as it has play)are waiting. Truck has good heat so the core isn't clogged, so will see. Good thing I work at a parts store lol.

Also thinking on moving to a efan. May hit the wreckers tomorrow and see if I can find a good fan, just to figure out how to run it lol.

 

Well, new rad and water pump is in (the pump bearing was shot so good thing I ordered it), new coolant... Also did a efan conversion and well ... The damn effing thing still has random bubbles of air at idle 😶 ugh I thought perhaps the rad was clogged and trapping air, but seems not to be the case. Next week it's to be a lot warmer than what it is now so will have to wait till then to see if it gets as hot as it did a few weeks back before the rad change.

Have a 195 thermostat installed, the truck at idle hovers around 197-205 having the rad fan on at 205 brings it back down to 197 then creeps back up to 205.

​​​​​​however it was only about 60ish degrees here during this test, and when I had the higher temps it was likely closet to 85 degrees out.