Hi everyone, I normally drive a 1999 Ram, but this past weekend I took my wife's 2002 4x4 1500 w/4.7 and 118k on the clock 200 miles to my parents'. Well, 154 miles into the trip I see the "check guages" light pop on. I had the dash dimmed out as it was at night and I needed to maximize visibility (lots of deer in that area) so I didn't see the temp guage until it was already in the red. I pulled over, let it idle with the heater cranked and cooled it down a bit, and then sat with it off for about 10 minutes or so. Got back on the road, and made it 5 miles before it was over near the red again. So I pulled off the interstate and called my dad to come with coolant as I was in the middle of nowhere and only had half gallon of 50/50 in the bed of the truck. By the time he got there (45 minutes) the motor was pretty cool. It was around 30 degrees outside so it helped a bit I s'pose. Put a little over half gallon of premix in, watched the level in the tank for a while and it never dropped. We got back on the road and as soon as I got up to 75, she started getting warm. I slowed down to 55 and it maintained around 3/4 of the way up (normally was a hair under half). The next day I drove around to find a radiator cap and t-stat and it didn't really get too warm even up to 55mph. Well, I replaced the radiator cap (the old one tested fine, but $5 was worth it) and the t-stat (OEM, 195 I believe) with ones from O'Reilly (only store open on Sunday there). Filled it with 50/50, first with the "bleed screw out" and then replaced the screw and filled it to the top, squeezed the upper hose and let it idle for around 30 minutes. The level never dropped.

Got on the road to test it out, and sure enough at 75 it's still pushing closer to the hot side. I had to get home to get to work today, so I borrowed a vehicle from my folks and left the truck there for dad to work on.

A side note, a bit over a week ago I was driving home and just about to my road I blew the upper rad. hose (grenaded it). I replaced it and filled it with coolant, trying to burp it as I went. My wife has mentioned that prior to that and since the heater was "hit or miss" for blowing warm. It worked great this weekend for me when I tried it.

Sorry for being long winded, but I'm confused and frustrated... mostly that I wasted a day of work (after finding parts, testing, replacing, etc.) and still have to drive 400 miles round trip to fix/get, etc. and since my dad isn't much of a wrencher (but he tries) I fear it may go to a garage (and add $$$ on top of another 400 miles worth of gas and $100 in parts/coolant I've already spent)... Any suggestions, thoughts, tricks, tips....??? The plan was to try to flush the rad. last night, but it was too late and I needed to get home (was my wife's bday and she was already ticked that I took her truck w/o her and broke it).

Thank you in advance!