If we would all be nice it would be great...I happen to take offense to someone saying "blah" to a well known, very common, shade tree fix for the cooling system that works better than what the shėtty procedure the rave has.

All good though, here to help, cant help everyone.

 

Yeah, those temps are way too high. And it sounds like your fan clutch is shot. Try replacing that and bleed, bleed, bleed the system. Elevated front end and raised bottle has always worked best for me. Maybe get a temp reader too, like an Ultra Gauge or such so you can monitor the temps. Dash temp gauge is not useful.

 

Alright, so I pulled off the new thermostat, tested fine, opened at 180 and was fully open around 200. The bottom of thermostat and bottom hose will be warmish, while top of thermostat and all other hoses are too hot to touch for more than a second. I've done several bleeds just as the manual says by raising the tank. Didn't help. I added running the heat and parking on steep hill both ways while warming back up. Every time I check the bleed screw is dry and requires about another cup. I've done 6 bleeds over 2 days. Also tested for combustion gases in the coolant and found none. There must be a different way to bleed or a reason there is air at the bleed screw. I even tried the old school bleed with the cap off and waited for the thermostat to open and the level go down and that didn't work at all. I did that before I did the last 6 bleeds. I can only spin the fan to the next 2 -3 blades at best, while cold or hot. The fan roars at times. Electric fans comes on on its own. Water pump is working, not sure if proper. I can easily blow on any line and get easy flow. What in the world is going on here guys? Please and thank you.

 

Go to the beginning

Note hot your primary fan should be harder to turn than cold.

1. Are you loosing any coolant at all if no great, if you are you need to deal with that before going any further
2. How hot is hot use a cheap wireless ODBII connector and your cell phone get an actual temperature - not the gauge.
3. Fans sound ok from what you are saying - but you must be hitting 212 or so to fire up the electric fan. If this is true your primary cooling fan should be
   roaring. If it is not the clutch is toast.
4. If every thing above seems to checks out time to bite the bullet and do a full cooling system flush. use a big cheap aluminum foil pan to catch the coolant, nothing should be coming out of there but coolant then water.
5. Before flushing with just water, after draining the system use a good flash light and look at your rad. The tubes should not look clogged.
6. Finally you can run without a thermostat to test - you will have to put a brass fitting in to replace the thermostat and cap off the bypass hose. If your temps are still bad you have a much bigger problem.

 

 

Of course the bottom hose will be hot, it's getting direct heat from the engine then. Not designed to work that way. Then when he disassembles to put things back the way they were designed he is introducing air back into the system again. If he has heat and the bottom hose is cold he could have an air issue in the stat causing the hot coolant to not open the stat.

Do you realize that some of the lines go DOWN? Air doesnt like to go DOWN.

Also, if you get an air bubble at certain places nothing will ever happen. Especially in the stat.

Your bottom hose will be cold unless you let it cycle.

Send me your "bad" stats. Nothing wrong with them..

You can test your fan clutch it either works or it dont.

Water pump either works or it dont it's just a fan connected to an axle, unless the fan came off the axle, its spinning.

I'm surprised no one has modified a bleeder for the heater pipes.

 

Like the raised coolant fill on the pre '95 RRC
That thing was great for getting air out fast of the early rigs.
Originally that part was made out of steel, but it would be simple to make for a DII with about $5.00 in copper pipe/Tee fitting.
I would probably replace the solid plug with a bleeder screw.

 

 

180F thermostat temps are going to vary depending on the terrain, humidity, outside temp, and it will vary depending on how your D2 is configured. 180F will open faster, but the overall engine temp will only be a few degree's lower vs a 195F thermostat, but every bit helps (normally 5-8F tops). In TX my 180F thermostat temps during the summer range from 188-210F, that includes hills, heavy traffic, stop n go traffic, and the weather conditions here.

Up north your temps could be 5F less, but it just depends.

On the way back from Austin, TX this weekend I took the back roads from La Grange, TX to Houston, TX due to I-10 being a complete nightmare due to construction (almost as bad the evacuation during Hurricane Rita). I went on some beautiful farm to market roads and I was still doing 60-70MPH, but with less traffic/concrete/asphalt my engine temps went from 200F to 188/193F & my air intake temps also went from 125F to 112F.



Thermostat wise yep installing, removing, installing, removing, installing is doing nothing but constantly adding air back into it. If you slap a thermostat on without any coolant in the lower hose = air right at the thermostat and it WILL NOT open due to the thermostat being surrounded by air vs coolant. The coolant isn't going to flow properly with the thermostat closed so the air is just going to sit under the thermostat.

I will gladly test anyone's INOP 180F thermostat in my 500.00 03 D2.

On a side note my Pyrex glass tube I installed on my Kalahari is doing perfectly fine, and I can monitor my coolant condition/flow in seconds.