A cracked block would have shown up in a few minutes. Air or exhaust gas woiuld make bubbles under dash sound, so no noise is good.

 

Update!

Got a new reservoir cap and a new soft spring thermostat that I'm putting in tomorrow. Was looking at my current thermo and I think that the two top hoses of the thermo are backwards. I don't think this will hurt anything, but who knows, might as well straighten that out tomorrow. Either way, I Took it on an adventure yesterday up to 4 of the local mesa's, ranging about 1000 feet up and down in altitude on each Mesa, climbing to about 10,000 feet, Most of it being muddy and pretty rough. It peaked about 217F towards about 2 hours of driving around and made it up the road pretty well. The ride back made me notice that the front brake rotors are warped, so I ordered some new ones on the way.

Also, I've noticed recently, a rough start when super cold, idle wise. i turn it off and then it starts right up with no smoke or sputtering. When warm, it happily starts up. I'll try to check the fuel psi if I got the right tool somewhere around here. I still have the emission codes, but I've been busy at work, so I haven't really looked into it yet. More to come.

 

Plumbing plan below. The center hose on top goes to the bleeder T. The side arm hose goes to the water pump.

 

Soft spring will make the big difference. The 180 degree thermostat.
Did in my '01.

If you never hear your fan, then you need a new fan clutch.
You should hear the fan roar when you are sitting at a stop light and then take off.

hayden heavy duty fan clutch land rover | eBay

 

Checked the plumbing and it is backwards, which I don't think makes that big of difference. Maybe an air bubble.....maybe. I'll fix tomorrow.

Fan clutch is good! Roars at start and feels like "peanut butter" when warm.

 

hmmmm... if you had the two top hoses reversed, when stat is open, it forces the top disc closed. So your coolant flow would be very low.

 

So put in new thermo, found out he ripped the thermo out of the old housing... ....but at the same time, can't win em all.

Turn it on and it got to 212 idling then started to drive, it got up to 235 around town And I parked it on the hill, Thinking it may need more coolant and bleeding due to a lot came out when I removed that thermo....but I fear the worse. But, No water in oil, no white smoke, no leaks, no excessive pressure but the hoses now have some pressure and the top of the engine was slightly warm to touch... Like 110 degrees..... I'm gonna let it sit and cool, then bleed it again.

I didn't hear any noise in the heater core area, but would it make a water fall noise at idle or in drive under pressure?

 

Also, is there a way to test the temp sensor?

 

Well after more investigation, I noticed some moisture under the oil cap and some bhg slime. Even though I never checked under it before, but I have a feeling we have found my problem...

 

Temp sensor - if it is driving your needle to the middle - probably OK.
There is a software hysteresis from the ECU that keeps the needle in the middle until
the engine gets really hot.

You can put a real time scanner on the ECU / OBDII as you have done and that
reading you are getting the temp from - is the temp sensor.

Well, so you see some moisture on the oil cap internals..
Had that for a time on my Discovery I.
At around 130,000 miles it was using a lot of antifreeze and probably throwing the rest down the cat converters.

If you are not losing coolant or misfires - I would not fuss or worry with head gaskets.

Once you get the 180 degree thermostat in there things will be a lot better.
I speak from experience.
My AUX fan HAS NOT come on since the new thermostat.
But, I have not been on trails or up mesas.

My AUX fan always came on after a trip when I got to the house or off of the freeway into a parking lot.

You may also want to put a heavy duty Hayden fan clutch in.
My clutch worked - but was 1/2 worn out.

On a test bench - the new fan clutch was twice as hard to turn as the used fan clutch I had in the rover.

The fan roars at times, but that's fine. It is working.