Buying an Infrared temperature gun might be a good way of finding out for
sure. They arent as expensive as they used to be....

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXEMG5

It's a tool that since i've owned, i've used for all kinds of household
applications, and the link to the one i've posted is a good gun i've owned
for a few years, it's plenty accurate when i've compared it to some much
higher end guns. However, i recently discovered it's not wise to use ontop
of mountains in ridiculously low temperatures......It doesn't work anymore :
(
Good for vanagons though.

-Craig
'85GL (with a 1.9)

On Dec 9, 2007 6:42 PM, Scott Daniel - Shazam <scottdaniel@turbovans.com>
wrote:

> That infra red temp gun is kinda 'the way' , or sure a nice non-intrusive
> internodes way to see what temp you are really running at.
> You'd like o see 180ish degree coolant coming out of the engine.
> I've found vanagon temp gauges generally to be very, very accurate.
> Like dead center is 180.
> Scott
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
> Vdub Guy
> Sent: Sunday, December 09, 2007 2:35 PM
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: Re: 2.1wbx into 85 GL
>
> <Cooler is not better, warmer is.
> This 'cooler is better' is left over from the air-cooled days.
> Do whatever you like, but you are costing yourself considerable $ / year
> in
> wasted fuel costs, not to mention shortening the life of your engine>
>
> And back from the days when water cooled cars had carbs and no computer
> controlled anything. Back in my old bracket racing days we'd always pull
> the
> thermostats on our Chevy Camaros (after the first of May) because the
> thought was cooler was better and produced more HP-that was then and this
> is
> now. However, I'm not convinced what my gauge is reading is accurate. My
> heater output is excellent ( I know the other day you said that's not an
> indication of coolant temp, but the only time I've had a stuck open
> thermostat the vehicle had NO heat) So that leaves a suspect gauge. My
> fuel
> gauge is flaky as well, list archives say swap the voltage stabilizer for
> a
> flaky temp & fuel gauge-did that with no change. Also checked and cleaned
> all the grounds as well-still no difference.  I need to get or find
> someone
> with an IR temp gun and see just how cool/warm this engine is running.
> Coolant hoses also get nice and warm, too.    Jeff
>