Posted by Glen on Thursday, October 02, 2003 at 12:08PM :
In Reply to: Re: Speaking of thermostats posted by Marty on Wednesday, October 01, 2003 at 3:45PM :
Haven't had to do anything special, radiator has never been out, has 4 blade fan, run timing very close to 2 deg ATDC but probably more like TDC, have the valves adj to .011 and .016 cold, normal heat range plugs, 20-50w oil, hoping and/or guessing the water distribution tube is intact but 99% sure it is original. Knowing the history of the truck makes me think the coolant was kept up over the years to prevent too much build up of gunk in the system. I'm thinking as long as the truck gets run fairly long and hard when I'm out driving the oil will see enough heat to cook off the bad stuff, if it was a trailer queen that didn't have any weight and just occasionally ran to the gas station I'd lean toward the 180 deg t-stat. The truck is 1000lbs heavier with the dump box so it's always got a load compared to an original pick-up box PW. The radiator capacity seems more than enough to keep a 6 cool under most normal conditions. Maybe my truck is not suffering from plugged cores, rotten dist tube, wacked out timing, or other symptoms that make for cooling problems.