300tdi running temperature?

[spy]

Hello all, its silly question time. 

We have a 95ish 300tdi manual that never reaches normal on the temp guage at this time of year.  I regular run over to see the folks, some 30 miles away, half country lanes, half motorway and sometimes it barely gets over the bottom line. 

I got it to the middle of the guage the other day, towing a caravan but without that on the back it never gets near.  The heaters are permenantly luke warm ish. 

Is this normal, if it was a series I would be fitting a rad muff, do they make em for the disco?   Would removing the viscous fan make that much difference? 

[KingWolf]

No - that's not normal....sounds like your thermostat is stuck open to me. It's an easy and very cheap fix.

I'd change this first and see what happens.

Mark.

[stageonesimmo]

Taking the fan off mine made no difference at all - even with the original rad which had zero (and I mean zero) fins in it! - the gauge stayed where it always had been - it does let it warm up quicker though.

I'd say it sounds like your 'stat is open like KingWolf suggests or the viscous unit is locked and so is over-cooling the thing.  Best way to tell is take it off and see what happens - its not really needed over here anyway. There are propper tests, but they take to long to type and you get the same result after just 30 seconds work anyway!

You could also try blanking the rad with a bit of cardboard/plastic.  Blank it off above the diagonal from bottom right to top left (viewed from the front of the truck), that should get the temp up a bit as well.

But yeah, stat sounds most likely culprit.

[spy]

Cheers fellas!  £4 ish and ten minutes to throw a stat in and its all sorted!  Heaters are great now! :D