My truck- 86 F 150, 302, FI. Sometimes at city speeds the temp gauge seems to read a little bit high. It never seems to get much past the point of the letter "L" in the word NORMAL that is printed on the display of the gauge. I read somewhere, maybe on this site, that this model year had gauges that didnt work that well, and its probaly nothing to worry about. Truck seems to run fine. What do you guys think??

 

Are you saying that the truck only gets that warm when driving slower in the city and runs cooler out on the open highway? If so then most likely your fan behind the radiator isn't drawing the air through the radiator properly.

 

that seems a bit hot to me, mine runs around the R or M in NORMAL even when going stoplight to stoplight.

I'd check out the fanclutch to see if it's still tight, and that the radiator is topped up and the overflow bottle is at the full mark.

when was the last time you replaced the thermostat/radiator cap and did a coolant flush?

 

Fan clutch.

Mine does the same thing. I haven't changed it yet. Apparently it's a fairly common problem in these trucks. Once you start moving, the airflow cools, but when going slow you need the fan.

My brother blew his head gasket because this happened in his Toyota and it got hot.

It's a fairly easy fix...but looks like you need the special tools to get it off. They have them at autozone though.