Allright guys and gals I need some advise. I have had a problem with my girlfriends 83 300D turbo running hotter than it used to. I noticed it one day and then changed the t-stat and flushed the system, which only made it run even hotter. Thinking it was a bad t-stat I exchanged it for another one which resulted in the same behavior. After reading on here and doing some searching I decided to buy a behr t-stat for it instead of the brand O'Rieleys carries, this once again had no affect on the temp.
The radiator does not appear to be plugged and seems to have good flow, the fan pulls air and seems to be working fine, and the water pump seems to be pumping the water because there is flow. This problem occurs at all speeds, either sitting at idle or running 80mph down the highway.
It is not getting in the red zone but it is staying around the 100C mark when it used to run no hotter then the 80C mark. I know some guys say that its fine as long as it doesnt get in the red but something is wrong for it to be reading that it is running this hot, and I want to find out what it is cause it is bugging me.
I have thought that it may just be the gauge giving a wrong reading (does anyone know where the temp. sending unit is on these??). The car has been having some problems with the tach also which works when it wants to and just recently the fuel gauge began jumping around as well as the temp gauge which will suddenly spike to 120C and instantaneously drop back down to around 100C. I have checked the connections on the back of the instrument panel and found nothing to be out of the ordinary.
Anyway if you have any suggestions or advise please let me know; it would be appreciated. Sorry to make this soo long but i wanted to include enough info for some valid advise.
Thanks
Chris