okay here is the deal In my 1993 F250 with the 5.8L 351w, 5 speed ZF, 4.10 gears...Was towing a trailer hauling a Ford Tempo to the shop...its not mine i promise!!!....the temperature gauge climbed the very edge of the normal range....too close to comfort for me for that light of a load, but however when driving the truck unloaded, the temp gauge never leaves the O or the R in the normal range.I have some hay hauling to do this weekend which will be close to 10,000 lbs. so i need to know what to do about my cooling system was considering putting a 20-30 degree cooler thermostat, and going ahead and putting a new O'Reilly's Masterpro "Heavy Duty" water pump on tommorow just so its all ready, i know the system is not leaking (the antifreeze level is the same)

 

Stock gauges on these trucks suck. Could have just been the sending unit for the gauge acting up. Did your truck overheat or was everything fine?

Putting a lower degree thermostat in instead of actually fixing the problem is not a good idea.

 

nothing over heated just going off what the gauge said should possibly look into get a different guage set i guess maybe even add a real oil pressure guage not that ******* idiot light

 

I've encountered this similar problem. If you have electric windows, this will be a good test. The next time you are driving and have been for say 20-30 mins, preferably also with accesories on, e.g., headlights and AC blower on, find a place you can stop. Shut off headlights and Blower motor. Now that you have stopped, roll the windows up and down, briefly hold the window switch in either the full up or full down method. While you are performing this, you need to watch the TEMP gauge BEFORE, DURING, and AFTER the test. If there is any high resistance you will see the temp gauge move up and down with the added electrical load on the wiring. If I run the same test as above, my temp gauge will read past the "L" of "NORMAL".

Also, as 86F150302 put it, puting a lower temp thermostat in will only add to problems down the road.

 

X2

and if its not the guage, flushing the cooling system and filling with new coolant usually fixes most problems.