Bad T-Stat??

[ToughCountry]

I was driving the other day and all of a sudden i saw my temp gauge sky rocket up to hot. I immediatly pulled over to make sure i had antifreeze and i was good i had no leaks or anything so i went back to my g/fs to take a better look. I noticed when i was driving that the gauge would just go way up then drop to normal then up and down. I am hoping that its my t-stat. What do u guys think it could be. Any ideas?

Jay

 

[Redrig]

Sounds like your t-stat is sticking. That is about the easiest and cheapest o start with anyway.

 

[jaredk]

That happened on my 94 Dodge Dakota (my last car... ehem, anyone want to buy it). I kind of got lucky because I saw it happening before it did. I realized the heat sinks (I dont know if that's what its really called... basically the cooling element) in the radiator were flaking out. I could easily push them out and therefore the radiator was losing it's cooling ability. Time for a new radiator if that's the case. Hopefully that's not the case! Good luck.

Jared

 

[jgilbs]

its def an early warning of a dying tstat. a new one is only like $8, so its just cheap insurance IMHO. also, it makes it A LOT easier to get the last bolt if you get a flex extension for your ratchet. first time changing it w/o a flex ext: 6 hours. next time with a flex ext: 5 min.