My truck (see my signature) has always ran around 196F-198F, according to my Gryphon. She has 68k miles on her now and at 60k I did a complete cooling system flush, including draining the block, and refilled with distilled water and Motorcraft Premium Gold coolant, as per the owners manual. Everything has been fine until recently. At about 67k miles it started getting hot. Coolant temps got to 225F and cylinder head temp got up to 231F. The truck never went into the limp home mode as described in the owners manual and the OEM temp gauge never changed from normal. So, I replaced the thermostat with and OEM temp of 190F, and everything has been fine since, up to a few days ago when it started getting hot again. This time it just gets up to 205F. It will shortly afterwards shoot back down to 198F, then slowly creep back up then shoot back down again... It's as if the thermostat is opening and closing at about 200F, but it was stamped on it 190F. Granted, it is going into summer and is hotter, but in all the history of the truck it has never done this before. I am thinking of putting in a 180F thermostat to see if this corrects the problem, but am also thinking of getting a actual Motorcraft OEM thermostat from the dealer and see if that fixes the problem... I'm thinking that the Murray brand that I got at O'Reilly's just might be a POS. Any opinions on this? Could it be the radiator cap not holding the PSI? Or, could it be a bad sensor somewhere in the system? I would think that the gauge is using the same sensor as the Gryphon, but I could be wrong, maybe there is 2 in there?

 

Most systems hover around 200*. 220 on a hot day is not bad actually depending on how log you are at idle. 260+ is overheating.

Hell a lot lectric fans in some cars only kick on about 230*. When I was setting up my efan I had to let the truck idle for 20 minutes for the radiator to reach 190*. Just double check your coolant level and it sounds fine at this time

 

Wow a lot of spelling mistakes on my part. Thanks phone

 

Search broken?

https://www.f150online.com/forums/19...l+coolant+temp

One sensor only - CHT. ECT is inferred from that by the PCM.

 

He doesn't have a 97...

My 07 shows about 205* most of the time on my gauge. It's drilled into the thermostat housing and is reading the coolant coming directly out of the motor. It almost never gets above 215* and maybe once above 220*

 

does not matter.

 

The only aftermarket thermostat I trust is a Stant. Do *NOT* put a 180 in there, the engine will run too cool, affecting economy and the way it runs.

 

Ditch that O'Reilly POS thermostat and go with Motorcraft. I have seen to many issues with that cheap Chinese crap O'Reilly is now selling. In fact most thermostats aftermarket wise nowadays are complete junk and I recommend factory all the time. Stant is another good option I think Napa sells them.

 

My 06 with the 5.4 reads 194 most of the time on my Edge. It may go up to 196 for a minute but then jumps back to 194. I read on here somewhere that the stock thermostat is 194.

 

I just came back from the Ford dealer with a shinny new Motorcraft thermostat. They also told me that others out there are junk and don't trust them. They see them fail all the time,they say. It's listed as a 190F stat, but if you read the copper plug it says 192F. I picked up a Motorcraft radiator cap as well while I was there. Now for the waiting game for the engine to cool down enough to pull the junk one out and replace. Oh, and FYI, the dealer told me that on the '04-'08 models with the 5.4L the "normal" operating temp is 196F during normal driving and not towing anything.

 

Ive also got an Edge and it shows 190-196 most of the time. It got up to 198 sitting in traffic on a hot summer day once but Ive never seen it above that.

 

No, search is not broken. And if you bothered to look at my signature like I stated in my original post, I have a 5.4L and a 2007 truck. The link that you referenced is about a 4.6L in a 1997 truck. That has NOTHING to do with my situation. Now if you bothered to search "normal coolant temp 07 5.4L" you would see that there is 9 threads to choose from and none of them answer the question in the title of the original post. So before you assume that I didn't even bother to search and instantly flame me, maybe you should do some searching yourself...

Just Saying...........

Sorry if it comes off wrong, i'm just getting tired of every time I ask a question people always respond with "did you search", "search broken", "RTFM".......

I search and read and read and read before I post a question. You have to give some people some credit.....

 

 

Hello did you ever fix your problem I just flushed my cooling system and changed my thermostat about 2days ago and everything was fine but today its starting to run hotter then normal.
My temp would stay @195-198 now its running @220 and when driving it has gone all the way up to 234F then cools back down to 224 when i come to a stop.

And i Used a Murry brand thermostat from O'reillys


Thanks

 

If it makes you feel any better, when I was kid in elementary school I had a bicycle made by Murry. lol