I recently put a new thermostat in my 98 v6 3.8l stang, its 195 degrees, when I drive it for about 10 minutes the heat guage reads that its overheating, like it will go to the " H " as far as it can go. Is this something normal for this? Can I keep going with it that high or do I keep pulling over?

It's a weird problem, it started with the new thermostat...

Thanks for the replies in advance...

 

No that's not normal. Maybe you got an air lock and the water isn't circulating.

 

I forgot to mention that if I let it drift or shut it off long enough to run a normal temp, I will get heat, and it will stop over heating... It only does it untill I get heat...

 

Change it to a 190 degree thermostat

Check waterpump, radiator, change hoses and make sure fan works

if all of those are good u won't have any overheating problems but when the new thermostat was installed was the system BURPED to get all the air bubbles out? if it wasn't thats a huge problem bc in air bubbles take room up where coolant should be and your system will think more coolant went in then it really did and it throws the thermostat out of whack

 

No I did not " burp " it, how would I go about doing that?

 

ok take the cap off the radiator and turn the car on. Easiest way to show you where the cap you need to take off is to follow these instructions

go to the front of your engine bay....left hand side is the hose that connects to your radiator..follow that...then it connects to the thermostat housing (steel pipe) and then it goes into your lower intake where the thermostat is.....on TOP of there you should have a yellow/off white cover with a big nut in the center with red writing on the cover. THAT is what you need to take off to 'burp' it...run the car with that open....when you see the coolant coming UP through that little tube the air is all gone...that is the 'escape' for air bubbles when the coolant is running. So you need to run the car until it heats up that the thermostat opens to cool it down for the air bubbles to leave