Okay, here is the update on the thermostat situation, for a long time the thing had been running hot (according to the
gauge)....but in the last week or so with the high temps here in Iowa I was really leery of even running the air conditioning and didn't (DOH!)...but it never pinged, or dieseled or blew anti freeze out of the overflow tube...my neighbor brought over his infra red thermometer while it was "overheating" and the radiator read 196 degrees (when the needle was pegged on HOT)...with a 195 thermostat that seemed about right. I replaced the water pump, vacuum advance module, all of the vacuum lines, thermostat, starter, intake gaskets and valley pan, temp sending unit, flushed it out and some other odds and ends...so,we took the sending unit out and replaced it with one that actually said "for a gauge" from O'Reilly's (like 10$ to buy)...it was running normal and the temp never even got close to half way on the gauge, even when it was over 100 degrees outside. Wish I had known it was fine during the heatwave...somewhere along the way a sending unit for an idiot light must have been installed, which made it look like it was ready to boil on me. I think that it is happy now...I don't care now if I am just going around the block...I am running the air conditioning.
