Hey everyone,
So people with a good memory might remember that I've been dealing with overheating issues basically the whole time I've been here. Well something odd is going on now. The water temp gauge I had in there was installed by a friend and was just your usual over the counter gauge, probably got it at autozone or something. The thing finally stopped working reliably (would read zero no matter what unless you jiggled the line) so I took it out and installed a gauge myself. This time not holding back, getting one of those 70 dollar Stewart Warner gauges someone on here recommended. Now I work in HVAC, I know these gauges use a bulb with a capillarity tube carrying refrigerant to move the gauge. The old gauge I thought was electric but turns out it was mechanical too and the line come to find it was all bunched up and pinched underneath the radio.. and I've heard how fragile those capillary tubes are on these things.. so who knows how good or bad that thing was running.

Anyway so my issue is this, with the hold gauge I was constantly fighting, teetering on the edge of overheating no matter what I did to the car whenever it'd get up to temp. Hovering around 190 to 220 on the hot-side stuck in traffic... basically made trying to drive the car a nightmare of worry. The last thing I did was remove the stock 4 fin cooling fan and installed a high-flow performance plastic fan with really aggressive curved blades, trying to keep this dang engine cool you know? Didn't really help very much.

So I install this new Stewart Warner gauge and now the engine is running too cold! Hovering around 140-145. Now once the car is up to temp, if you sit idling for minutes on end it will heat up.. think I got it up to 170 at most before I moved again. It'll raise and lower as you'd expect in stop and go traffic once warmed up. I even tested the gauge with boiling water before putting it in and while it took awhile to raise up it did get to 212 in boiling water. I've changed the thermostat twice since I owned the car and haven't driven it a lot since but it's been awhile so I couldn't tell you what it's rated. I'd assume 160-170 opening temp.

My question is this, do you guys think It'd make a 40 degree difference just switching back to the stock fan? I wouldn't think it'd make that huge of a difference. I'm happy not to have it wanting to overheat anymore at least by what the gauge says, but I also don't want to wear the engine running it so cold either.. I'm honestly surprised it's even that cold but I don't know how the gauge could not be working right.. I installed it very very gently and hardly even unwound much of the tubing it's still mostly all curled up under the dash like it came. What do you guys think?