hi guys new here, i just bought this truck about 2 months ago and dont use it much... i have been having 2 problems with it; 1994 k3500... antifreeze foaming up, and running too hot for my taste... okay so my 2 questions are: anyone reccomend a 180 t-stat to buy, available at napa or anywhere local? or specialty item?? and any idea's on the foaming coolant??? i will be flushing the system tomorrow and refilling with plain old green antifreeze thanks for any help guys...

t-stat can be picked up at napa. might wanna flush the cooling system and pull the rad out of the truck and clean the bugs, grass, sand and any other crud from the fins. could also probably straighten some of the fins. Ed

thanks for the quick reply i hate 195 t-stats and dont run them in anything so hopefully napa will have the 180 in stock tomorrow i already bought a bottle of coolant flush yeaterday and will be trying to address these problems tomorrow... thanks again...

Kennedy Diesel has the 180 degree Robert Shaw thermostats. call em!!

thanks for the quick reply i hate 195 t-stats and dont run them in anything so hopefully napa will have the 180 in stock tomorrow i already bought a bottle of coolant flush yeaterday and will be trying to address these problems tomorrow... thanks again...

Thinking about putting these in, why do you hate the 195's?

While the Tstat are out, pull the serpentine belt and top off the coolant so the cross over housing is full.

Start the Truck for a short time and look for bubbles in the cross over.

Foaming means air in the system. One source of air is a blown gasket. If your changing the Tstats, verify that you don't have a compression leak. This is a quick check and will same time and agravation later.

A compression leak will have the same symtoms you describe.

FYI, fill in your signature so everone knows what your working on. Welcome to the Diesel Place.

well i flushed it and refilled it, bleed it and put a 195* with 2 1/8" bleeder holes from napa for now and the foam has just about disapeared i still get a little but i havent gone to far with it... i know i've been thinking head gaskets myself...

well the reason i hate 195's is, (in my lowly opinion) is that for a little loss in economy, the peice of mind of having an extra 15 degrees to the boiling point is worth the trade off... i do have a 195* in my kenworth with a cat 3406b thats turned up to 625hp and the extra 15 deg. did make a big difference in black smoke... i would run a 180 in that also, but the smoke checks were getting expensive... now it doesnt attract as much attention... so pretty much personal prefferance... i fear change! :D well im off to put it to the test, i gotta pick up a 30' travel trailer i just bought... let you know how it goes, if it starts foaming and puking everywhere, i'll need a reccomondation on head gaskets :rolleyes:

oh and when my 180 gets here i'll check the cross over for bubbles... as per jmiller thanks for the tip!

I have the dual Tstats in mine, and their both 195's. Even with the throttle pegged in 4-lo in first gear clawin up some muddy hills all day with not much frontal airflow, just basically what the fan moves, the truck doesn't get hotter then 100 degrees. (Canadian truck, so half way on the gauge) I don't fear the 195's. If I was towing a huge arse trailer worth a good heafty load, then I might switch to the lower temp tstats.
But since you only have the one tstat and the 87 gpm water pump in your 94 I'd recomend the 180, and also switching to the dual tstats and "HO" 130 gpm water pump.

pretty sure its the head gaskets... oh well... it runs cool now even pulling a 30' travel trailer up the big hill to my house... but its still foaming just not as bad... so anybody with a gasket reccomendation chime in here... fel-pro's???