No, that is not normal. As I said here 2 months ago when you first started this thread, you have a wrong notion of what is normal based on what your other van did. The temp gauge needle should be near or right against the bottom edge of the led, or even higher, as you go down the road with the engine warmed up. Obviously, the outside air temp makes some difference but the whole purpose of the thermostat is to keep the engine temps fairly stable under all conditions and in the range for best engine operation and lowest wear. Yours are not, since you have a thermostat that keeps the coolant flowing too much a lot of the time. Your engine is running too cool as you cruise on the highway and then comes up to normal while you are stationary for a time with the engine running. Look at the parts data for other Audi and VW vehicles of the era ours are from. You will find that 87 degree thermostats prevail, regardless of engine type, vehicle type, turbo or not, etc. There are a few times where an 80 degree thermostat is called for in certain climates or load conditions. There are lots of examples where larger capacity radiators are available, second helper radiators are available, different fans or fan cowlings are available, all as options but with the same 87 degree thermostat. That should tell you something, hopefully. Mark
JordanVw@AOL.COM wrote: > ..................... > >got done eating, then drove back out on the highway, heater blower motor >still OFF and needle came down to little more than halfway between red light >position and fat white lower line. stayed that way till i got home. > >honestly, it seems to be operating as a normal 85 vanagon should. right? >this is with the 70º t-stat in there currently. > >anyway i will borrow a IR gun to appease my curiosity.. > >chris > > > > |
Please note - During the past 17 years of operation, several gigabytes of
Vanagon mail messages have been archived. Searching the entire collection
will take up to five minutes to complete. Please be patient!
Return to the archives @ gerry.vanagon.com
The vanagon mailing list archives are copyright (c) 1994-2011, and may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the list administrators. Posting messages to this mailing list grants a license to the mailing list administrators to reproduce the message in a compilation, either printed or electronic. All compilations will be not-for-profit, with any excess proceeds going to the Vanagon mailing list.
Any profits from list compilations go exclusively towards the management and operation of the Vanagon mailing list and vanagon mailing list web site.