After recently going through a head gasket rebuild/head job ordeal, I'm super-paranoid about overheating my truck.
I typically run at about a needle width over halfway on the temp gauge, sometimes it seems to creep up a little higher. I'm running a nonstandard (thinner) belt on the water pump as the defunct alternator the PO installed in place of the smog pump has a thin pulley. I suspect it may intermittently slip causing somewhat higher temps - but I just ordered my actual smog-pump replacement pulley and will be putting on the standard belts to remedy this.
To my question; I notice that on many occasions the temp gauge is in it's normal halfway-ish position as I'm driving around. If I stop someplace for a few minutes (to get gas, run into the grocery store for a quick errand or whatever) when I come back and start the truck again the needle rises up well into the top 1/3 of the temp gauge. It almost immediately comes back down to normal as soon as I start driving.
This is really noticeable if the drive has been on the highway, or up a steep grade, or something like that. I can imagine that I'm shutting the truck off and without coolant circulating the internal temps go up - which seems to be confirmed by the temps going down as soon as I start the truck again.
I guess I'm wondering if this is normal as I haven't seen this happen on any other vehicle, if it would be harmful for the temps to rise dramatically and then cool dramatically upon start-up, or if this is some consequence of sensor position (steam travelling up to the temp sensor)...any ideas are appreciated.
(And I know the temp gauge itself isn't precise...I have a water temp gauge ready to install as soon as I can figure out the best place/way to do it...could I thread it into a BVSV port on the thermostat housing??? I really don't want to drill/tap/weld anything)
I typically run at about a needle width over halfway on the temp gauge, sometimes it seems to creep up a little higher. I'm running a nonstandard (thinner) belt on the water pump as the defunct alternator the PO installed in place of the smog pump has a thin pulley. I suspect it may intermittently slip causing somewhat higher temps - but I just ordered my actual smog-pump replacement pulley and will be putting on the standard belts to remedy this.
To my question; I notice that on many occasions the temp gauge is in it's normal halfway-ish position as I'm driving around. If I stop someplace for a few minutes (to get gas, run into the grocery store for a quick errand or whatever) when I come back and start the truck again the needle rises up well into the top 1/3 of the temp gauge. It almost immediately comes back down to normal as soon as I start driving.
This is really noticeable if the drive has been on the highway, or up a steep grade, or something like that. I can imagine that I'm shutting the truck off and without coolant circulating the internal temps go up - which seems to be confirmed by the temps going down as soon as I start the truck again.
I guess I'm wondering if this is normal as I haven't seen this happen on any other vehicle, if it would be harmful for the temps to rise dramatically and then cool dramatically upon start-up, or if this is some consequence of sensor position (steam travelling up to the temp sensor)...any ideas are appreciated.
(And I know the temp gauge itself isn't precise...I have a water temp gauge ready to install as soon as I can figure out the best place/way to do it...could I thread it into a BVSV port on the thermostat housing??? I really don't want to drill/tap/weld anything)
