operating temp / gauge question...

[Ameer Antar]

under normal operation, my gauge sat in the middle almost all the time, a 
bit less in winter. In traffic it would climb above the half point, but not 
by much. I had a new radiator put in when I bought the car. But the weird 
thing is, when my rad. fan switch got shorted and the fan ran all the time, 
the temp would stay below the 1/4 mark, esp. on the hwy. I would've thought 
the thermostat would've closed, but it didn't. Maybe the thermostat worked 
ok, but couldn't completely stop coolant flow. In any case, I think half 
way is where it's s'posed to be for optimal running, winter or summer. good 
luck.

-ameer


At 06:08 PM 12/1/2000 , you wrote:
>Jim,
>
>On my 5KCSTQ the needle on the temp gauge would generally sit just below
>the halfway point with period forays above that before the fan kicked in
>and brought it back down to just below 1/2 again. Maybe there was something
>wrong with my car but it ran like this for 90,000 miles with no problems (-
>well no overheating problems anyway!). For a warmed up engine, 1/4 sounds low.
>
>HTH
>
>AD.