I've got an 87 pickup with the 22re. Just bought it about a week and a half ago and am starting to go through some of the issues. One thing I have noticed is that the temp guage will begin to read as warm within about 5-10 seconds after a cold start up. I know that the truck is not overheating due to the fact that the day I drove it home, I got stuck in Seattle traffic for a half hour on one of the few warm days we've had this year. So I'm wondering if it is a problem with the temp sender? Or maybe the guage? Not sure. I thought about just buying an aftermarket mechanical guage but I'm not really sure where to put the thermo in. I'm more familiar with the small block chevy's where you can put them in just about anywhere. I dont really want to mess with the stock location, because that may mess with the ECU (maybe? not sure). I would imagine that the ECU would know what the operating temp is. Any thoughts, suggestions or advice would be helpful and much appreciated. Thanks.

 

You might need a dual stage thermostat from Toyota. You might be having the temperature gauge overshoot problem which is quite common on 22re's.

 

Temp guage overshoot problem? Havent heard that one yet.

 

Get yourself an FSM and test OHM resistance on the sensor. Chances are the sensor has failed, and is reading as hot immeadietly. Its also possible that the gauge doesn't work correctly.

Sounds like a silly question, but are you sure your truck has a Thermostat in it? That can cause it to do that as well.

 

Even if it didnt have a thermostat in it, the guage would not read operating temperature within seconds of start up. If anything, lack of a thermostat would cause the engine temp to rise even slower, because all of the water is circulating through the engine and is not being held in the block by the t-stat.