OK, I searched the forum and found lots of info stating that according to chevrolet that the overheat area on the gauge says that at 255 you are overheating. I also saw that 220 is still ok. My question is what is your normal operating temp. Yesterday at 70 outside temp without ac on I was at 208. Is this pretty good. I know I'm not too hot but just want to get an idea of what you guys are at tempwise. Thanks again.

 

C'mon guys gimme some input! Thanks

 

Here we go again!

 

Sorry if you think I'm beating a dead horse, but like I said I did search the forum but couldn't find my answer. Just like mom said " the only stupid question is the one you don't ask". Thanks for your input.

 

Remember the old days. If no steam was coming out from the hood, all was good!

 

220 is a bit high for normal operation in my opinion. Normally I clean out the rocks from the condensor twice a year and obviously you should look up under there for bags and so on from the road. Mid summer heat, AC running and so on, you could see 220 with no complaint. Here in the fall, I wouldn't expect it. 208 is good if you are in traffic and as mentioned already, 10 below that driving down the road would be expected.

 

Your temp is fine. Check for leaves, bags and stuff around the radiator intake area occasionally. If you didn't find anything searching for temperature questions on a C5, you clearly need to work on your search skills. There are hundreds of threads about it.

 

I thought I had searched very well, with at least 5 different searches worded differenly. Thanks for the input.

 

 

Both reply's you made today were totally useless. If you don't want to mess with questions then move on to something else. Sorry if I put you out.

 

Here's one I found with a 30 sec search.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-t...-too-high.html

 

Just about as useless as your question!

You haven't filled out a user profile, so no one even knows which year Corvette that you are asking a question about.

The only information that you provide in your avatar refers to a 1975 C3 that you own.

 

Sorry for not changing my avatar, I just got this car 3 days ago. Can't we all just get along.

 

Sure we can! You'll get your answers but you just can't be very thinned skinned around here. You all ready have been provided some reading material.

 

Most of here us get along just fine, and also share valuable information and experience with each other along the way.

If you fill out your user profile, learn how to search previous Forum topics, and follow 87SAM's good advice, getting along here will be easy and also a lot of fun. Welcome to C5 Tech!

 

FWIW, I had difficulty finding out what the stock thermostat temperature was by searching... if you want MY OPINION, there are WAY too many people asking obvious questions about what a 160 degree thermostat does vs. a 180 vs. stock. If the stock operating temps are a dead horse, then the 160 thermostat questions are a dead elephant.

A thick skin helps in these forums, and getting into an argument is pretty much pointless. Just learn to ignore - the helpful folks will chime in. Then again, some of the parade-pissers are actually trying to be helpful, it just doesn't sound like it!

I just replaced my thermostat with a new stock GM unit. When steady cruising at low speeds (40-45 MPH) my temps are just over 200. Increasing speed gradually drops temps to 198-200. This is with nice cool fall air.

Sitting in traffic with the AC off will see your temps cycle up to ~227 and back down to ~217; these are the fan on/off temps and is perfectly normal. Also, the fans only need to come on at LOW speed at these temps and are barely audible. If the fans are on HIGH to keep the car cool you have a problem.

If you're sitting in traffic with your AC on and notice your temps climbing into the 220's and 230's with the fans howling away on HIGH then you have a problem also.

Checking for bags and other stuff sucked up into the rad is one easy check to do, but when I had my rad out of the car I found it was plugged SOLID in front of the fans. This could not be seen from below even though the front of the rad is visible from underneath. My car runs much cooler now, the way it was intended to.

 

Go to......Home Depot/Walmart etc. and buy a long handle lint dryer brush and clean all the "crap" out between the radiator and A/C. That is the first place to start. After you have done that, get back to us with any new results....and we will give you "step two".

 

Not sure where you are located but I would normally see temps lower than 208 while driving with an outside temp of 70 but I wasn't running the A/C (top down). I would make sure the radiator is clean as others have suggested. The car is a vacuum cleaner of sorts and picks up a lot of stuff that can clog the radiator. If nothing else, since the car is new to you, you will be starting with a clean radiator when you are done.

 

Your radiator was plugged up solid, even though it sits behind the AC condenser? I'd think the AC condenser (which is the "radiator" you see first when sticking your hear up under the nose for a peek) would catch most of the crap from making it to the actual coolant radiator. Obviously, if the AC condenser is plugged up it will choke air flow to the coolant radiator and cause hot running.

 

^ Yep. I was amazed, but the AC condenser only seemed to have some light fluff and little stones in it. For the most part it wasn't very dirty at all.

There's a gap between the rad and AC condenser, and the air "foil" is directly below the rad. Stuff (dirt, fuzz, racoon hair? etc.) must get pushed up into that gap and stuck in the rad. It took a long time to clean out, but the car had ~120k miles when I took it apart and had never before been cleaned. A large area in front of each fan was litterally plugged solid, probably 40% of the total surface area.