[Wayne Maybury]

Thermostat: I had a 180 in it which I thought may have been sticking since it held at one temp for a while, then later on would rise up to a higher level and stay there. When I changed the thermostat last week, I put in a 160 which runs cooler than the 180 but it also rises up to, and stays at, a higher temp after a while.

Overfilling, puking, etc: I have installed a small overflow tank which takes care of any excess coolant expansion but it had a small leak (which I fixed). Before changing the cap to a new 16 psi unit, the old cap would allow coolant to puke out on the ground even though the rad was not overfilled. After running and stopping the car 10 or 15 times, the coolant level would continue to drop down until it was well below the bottom of the rad upper tank. Changing the cap fixed that.

Temperature gauge: Yep, I have considered adding an after market gauge that will tell me what the temp really is. The original gauge in the car doesn't bounce around at all. It climbs slowly as the engine warms up and then it stays quite stable for a period of time, then after driving for a half hour or so and/or having to sit at a couple of red lights, it will creep up (I estimate 15 or 20 degrees) and stay there. It will not come back down to the original stable level that I would have observed a bit earlier. My experience with other cars is that it is quite normal for the engine to heat up somewhat when idling for a while in traffic but the temp would nomally drop back down as soon as the car starts to move at 20 or 30 MPH. This one doesn't, it just stays at the higher temp level.

I flushed the rad last night and refilled it with 50/50 coolant but I haven't had a chance to take it out for a run yet. I have also ordered a shroud which I should get by the weekend. Thanks for all the comments. I will let you all know how this works out.

Wayne