This weekend I had my '87 300TD fully loaded with books luggage, picture frame on the roof and family. While traveling over the Cumberland gap on I68 west of Cumberland, as I usually do on that streach of hilly highway, I preformed an Italian tune-up.

For the first time ever (since I fixed the plugged ALDA line) I reached full load on this engine for an extended period of time. By this I mean that with the accelerator pressed to the floor the car stopped accelerating in third gear before reaching MAX RPMs.

I know, the exact required conditions for an Italian tune-up. We'll the good part was that my new (Jan 02) head was still clean as a wistle -- not a single burp of black soot.

The bad part was that the engine temperature never reached an equalibrium. It continued to rise slowly until, when it reached 120 deg C. (The temp line just below the red line on my guage.), I cried uncle and eased off. Temp stopped climbing and returned to 84 deg C shortly after cresting the hill and removing the load.

This hill is 4 mi or less in length so all this happend in a matter of minutes. I realize that engine load is the main factor in engine temperature, but I would have expected to reach an equalibrium temperature somewhere below the red-line. It didn't seem to be happening that way. With a recent head replacement in mind I wasn't going to see where the temp stoped rising!

In the list's experience what would I expect to be the fully loaded operating temperature of the '87 603 turbo engine?

Thanks,

__________________
-Mike
'87 300TD 304kmi (RIP)
'95 Toyota Camry Wagon 125kmi