First post! Be prepared... Ya'll are gunna get a lot of dumb questions from me... I've been wanting to get an old Ford for a long time and finally pulled the trigger! I'm pretty handy but haven't worked on automobiles much. So please forgive me for all the newbie questions that I'll be asking. One of the big reasons I wanted an old truck was to learn how to work on it as I go. Since I'm a newb I had a mechanic check out the truck for me. He said it was in amazing shape and one of the best he's seen from that era. They got it up to 65 mph on the highway and said it ran/drove great. Driving it home after I bought it I noticed the temp gauge getting pretty close to the H. Thought it might be over heating. The more I thought about it I realized I might not know exactly where on the gauge is the danger zone. Pic attached of what the gauge looks like after a few minutes warming up. Is that too hot? Or is any spot in that section in between the C and the H ok? When we were driving it home it actually got to that white line before the H so we turned the heat on and it dropped some. Would hitting that white line be too hot?

Thanks in advance!

Thanks guys! I’ll keep a close eye on it to make sure it stays in that “u” and if it keeps hitting the far side I’ll probably do as you suggested. My buddy has a ‘66 and said he’s replaced the thermostat more than once. Said it’s real cheap too. Just got the truck (74 F100 with 302) and haven’t even gotten to drive it since I brought it home last weekend.