well good to hear. i went to a shop and its gonna cost me about $1200-$1500 to get my gaskets replaced.

 

The was on the road a bit more today.The only time the temp gauge rose a "tiny" bit (as it should)and dropped right back to 12 o clock position was when in a drive-through line sitting still for several minutes. So far so good.

 

Update.

Well, it happend again this afternoon. My wife was driving home from town and out of nowhere the temp gauge started the quick jumping up toward the hot range. She pulled over on a frontage road and sat for 15 minutes, started the car and it was fine for the 12 mile drive home.

Everything is fine and then boom.... something changes very abbruptly. This is very odd.
Any thoughts?

 

Please read the post directly above... then this one.

I just drove the car 4 miles to my garage, everything was just fine. Once there I put her inside the garage, left her running, turned the a/c on to increase a bit of load on the engine and to see if the cooling fans would kick on. I ran the engine for 10 minutes like this... the temp gauge never moved from the 12 o clock position, not a touch...?????


Where is the temp sensor located on this engine? There has to be a restriction or something similiar that just "happens" at random on this.

The engine runs "smooth as silk"

Your thoughts?

 

Now im starting think you are seeing signs of the failing head gasket. after the car sat for awhile and your wife started it back up did it idle rough at first and then smooth out if so then gaskets are bad and coolant is getting into the cylinders. The shop called me today and told me its going to cost me $2800 instead of the $1200 he first quoted me. Just for that he gave me a 15%discount on parts and labor big woop! and said it would bring the cost to $2500. The bright side to this i guess is that they said they would warranty the work for 3yrs/12,000mi. So hopefully you dont have to go down this path but if i were you i would check your coolant level and see if you had lost any if so take it in to get fixed before you do more damage. GOOD LUCK! keep us posted.

 

I had just changed oil and it is clean as a whistle and the coolant looks good as well (that is fresh as of Sat) when each of those was changed the old stuff looked good as well.

A reminder on this... last week the engine went 5 days and about 500 miles or close to it without so much as a upward bump of the temp needle. Sat night I changed the thermostat and coolant and it has been perfect again until this afternoon.

I wonder if a hose could be collapsing at times?

 

BTW, the coolant level is hold at the correct level in the tank.

 

Did you burp the system? Might have an air pocket causing the coolant not to flow. once that air pocket gets to the water pump it acts like a blockage until it cools off and the air goes esle where. just a thought, hopefully you are still in good shape after running that hot.

 

I have had the cap off a few times when she was at running temp and also when hot. When I changed the thermostat the car ran quite a while without the cap until I knew it was circulating well.

I kind of wonder if something might be loose in the rad that affects flow here and there. I had a problem like that in the mid-90's on a Audi 5000 that I had. It was an intermittent problem and she would also heat up like this.

 

OK, THIS IS ODD...

It is the middle of the night, I had to make 2 back to back runs to another property where my garage/workshop is located, about 4 miles away.
About half way there on the 2nd trip the temp needle started to make jumps toward the red. At about the 3/4 mark I shot the ign off and quickly coasted to a stop. I immediately started the engine and saw that the needle started dropping ... .immediately & quickly, right back to normal. How odd is that???

I drove the remaining mile and a half and once there left the car running for about 3-4 minutes and it was fine. I started back on the road back home and a 1/4 mile later the needle started bumping up again, I swung around to head back to the garage and then it would settle back down "just" above the normal 12 o clock spot, I turned around toward home and it bumped up again. I turned back to the property and stopped in front of the garage and open the hood. With a squeeze I could feel coolant going through the hose (water pump hose) The fans were running on low.

I took off for home again and this time the just once the needle went to the first mark above the top center and then did settle about an 1/8th of an inch above top center (normal) and stayed there.

Again look at the first paragraph above, that is weird.

Could it be a bad temp sensor? Where is that located? But then also wouldn't it go below the top center (normal) position as well as toward the hot?

This mystery needs to be figured out because one of you could end up with the same issue. This car is completely original, no mods.