Overheating

[luis@odf.ucsd.edu (Luis Patino)]

Hello to all! As a new list member who has been reading the
archives since I bought my 4KSQ in Jan '96, I must thank
you all for helping a really starving student keep this
amazing (IMHO) car not just going, but kicking the butt of
of cars costing 10, 20, or more times the $1800 I paid for
it!

In the 36K mi of fun that I have logged into this car, I
have accumulated many anecdotes, tips, knowledge, and 
questions which I will soon share.

Because of consistency and coherence when asking questions
I will try to keep to one question per message, so now
I ask about the most worrisome threat to my car. Since I 
bought it, it seemed to me that this car runs on the hot
side. In stop-and-go traffic the coolant temp gets about
3/4 up, and the oil temp LED indicator gets to the mark
between 60 and 130 C. At a constant 70 mi/h, the coolant
temp drops to 1/2 up, and the oil temp _climbs_ to near 
130. At 80-90 the coolant temp might climb back up to 3/4,
and the oil's to a notch above 130. On a trip from San 
Diego to Las Vegas, with outside air temp at close to 40 C
(100 F) and with speed close to 100 mi/h the oil temp 
started to climb very fast to 150. Since it had never 
gotten so hot at other times when the speed had approached
100, I immediately suspected the thermostat, so I
stopped right away. After it cooled down, I took the 
stat out, and drove it without it the rest of the way, but
it did not repeat that scary overheating episode even if I
pushed the car up to 100 again uphill. Instead it stayed 
a notch above or below 130, as before. On that trip last
June, after it got us safely to Vegas, the poor seal
that the water inlet made without the stat gave out and 
leaked, but with enough warning so that the car did not get
to overheat. A week ago I saw a friend's Scirocco blow a 
head gasket because of overheating, and his car's temp
gauges showed coolant boiling but oil temp only rose to
120 C !! and it blew a gasket !! My car's oil  constantly 
runs at 130 C, is this normal or will it too suffer the
Scirocco's fate? Fearing this I just flushed and cleaned
and back flushed every nook and cranny of the cooling
system, but if anything my car runs hotter now. So far,
all this heat has not affected its excellent performance 
a bit. How hot is my 85 4KSQ supposed to run? Do I
better do something fast, or am I worrying about nothing?
A good mechanic suggested that I run it with 10w30 oil
instead of the (Amsoil 2000) 20w50 in it now. In fact,
with the lower visc it does run 20 C cooler.

Please give me a hand with this!

Luis Patino

'85 4KSQ