How hot

[Goose68]

Today it was over 90 when I went for a ride on my 84 venture. It has always ran right at or above the first line at the bottom1/4 of the temp gauge,but today I hit construction and set in traffic not moving for 5 to 10 minutes and the gauge went up to about 2/3 high. Is this normal? It cooled right back down when I got to rolling again.

[MiCarl]

That's the way mine is too. Fan will kick on just below the red line.

 

You'll know the fan kicked on because all the skin will fall off your legs.

[Peder_y2k]

Quite normal, but temp quage will go higher under similar circumstances riding two-up. 1983 models read high, but never boils over if cooling system is clean, full, and t-stat working. Later models don't read nearly as high, and cooling fan can remain on when key is shut off.

-Pete, in Tacoma WA USA

'83,88

[Snaggletooth]

As said, all sounds normal with everything works as it should on a 1st gen.

 

There is one more thing you can take a look at that "might" help a bit if it needs cleaned up.

 

Pull the radiator cover and take a look at the radiator itself. Mine was cleaned and tested a couple years ago but when I had the cover off there was a LOT of dead bugs, road debris and some minor damage to the fins on the cooling core. A lot of blockage.

 

I ended up loosening the radiator and using a water hose to softed up the dead bugs and then used a compressor to blow them out from the backside. Then combed the fins out to straight again I did get some improvement on the cooling.

 

Just one of those things that need to be looked at once in a while.

[Goose68]

I have seen where some has hooked up a switch to turn the fan on if they wanted to, but it still worked in automatic. Does anyone have a clue how they have done this?

[rbig1]

ground the wire from sensor to a switch and leave factory terminal hooked up. when you flip switch it turns on fan. just like the sensor would work for factory setup. its the blue wire on a 83 right front thermostat housing.

[mralex714]

I have seen where some has hooked up a switch to turn the fan on if they wanted to, but it still worked in automatic. Does anyone have a clue how they have done this?

 

I changed my switch to one that turns the fan on at a lower temp. The fan comes on with the gauge just a little above half and runs less than a minute. I also took out about 20oz of the 50/50 coolant and replaced it with distilled water and water wetter, it seems to stay cooler and cool down faster.