Rebel

At cruising speed on the highway, where does your temp gauge sit? Mine sits about a 1/4 of the way up from the bottom. Seems kind of cold to me but I could be wrong. It does go up to 3/4 while idling in traffic at 115 degree outside temp.

toy power

sounds like a broken fan clutch. motor should run at the same temp all the time.

abecedarian

Rebel-
how long does it take the temp gauge to show a warm engine, say that 1/4 way up area?
If it doesn't reach 1/4 of the way up within 10 minutes or so of starting the engine regardless of whether you let it sit and warm up at idle or take off driving right away, I'd say your thermostat is the likely culprit, and it is sticking open.

Elvota

Mines rock solid just under 50% regardless of conditions.

James Dean

Thermostat could be bad. If it is stuck open (or if it opens too far) the water flows thru the radiator to fast and doesn't cool down. At high speeds there is enough air to compensate for it, but at an idle or low speeds there is not.

Mine sits just below center of the thermoeter in the middle.

Rebel

It shows 1/4 at about 5 minute of idle warm up. I was just curious. I will be doing an sr5 cluster swap shortly and we'll see if it changes. The t-stat is new so it shouldn't be a problem. Going with an electric fan as well. The warm a/c in traffic isn't very nice.

abecedarian

since you're thinking electric, make sure to get one with the full shroud around the radiator.

just a 22re

mine just sitts right at the 1/2 way mark idleing or doing 120 no diff

DIHOWARD

mine sits right below the fuel gauge.



ok, seriously. it's just below the 50% mark.

mt_goat

After warmup it is smack dab in the middle all the time. Even if the coolant temp gets all the way up to 235 degrees F, it stays in the middle. I've heard that around 240 F it will start to go above midway on the factory gauge so if you get above midway I'd be real concerned.

hmmwv15

My 87 4x4 I had always sat rock solid at about 1/4 the gauge. My 2wd always sits rock solid at 1/2 gauge, and my 4runner sits rock solid at nothing since it's broke.

dubweiser

lol...so's mine...as soon as it starts its instantly warm

gte718p

mine too. I think my truck is pyschic and prewarms its self.

91diesel

toyota factory gauges are a fancy idiot light. The toyota guys over in Australia found that the gauge doesn't move from the middle for over 30deg Celsius! By the time it is in the red you've pretty much already cooked your engine 5 minutes before. They came up with a great solution, you have to replace a diode and a resistor that is in the gauge with 2 different resistors and the gauge will be a linear gauge. It'll sit about in the middle still for normal warm up but you can see the heat build up when climbing a hill and the resulting cool down when going over the other side. Apparently toyota made the gauges they way they did so that people wouldn't call in saying their car is broken because of the moving temp needle. If anyone is interested I can give the particulars on the resistors and how to do it with pics (maybe!?)

Elvota

Post up.

Team420

^ X2, I would like to do that to my rig.

1992toyota4x4

ya mine sits at just under half, and never moves.

Jay351

x3

It would be nice to know how hot my engine is getting.

91diesel

Sorry, busy all weekend will post pics, in the meantime you need to track down a 120ohm 5w resistor and a 56ohm 5w resistor. These are not that common here, I had to order them from overseas.

abecedarian

I'd rather get home with a few degrees to spare, then know I can push a bit more and use them degrees up.
I tend to err on the side of caution and safety than failure.