Howdy there.
First off, the 700 series has a "compensated" temp gauge. Translation: people worried about minor fluctuations, so we set it to read an artificial normal value, once warm, until your car is about to melt an engine.
I wouldn't try to take off any exhaust parts at this point. You're 70 miles from home, got any tools?
Try to check thoroughly for any kind of intake leaks! That could cause the whole problem. My car would "buck" when the gas was stomped and get capped out violently above 3500 rpm and run hot when it had an intake leak. It was mis-diagnosed as a blocked catalytic converter before finding the real issue.
Check the FPR, good advice.
Smell the air in your coolant bottle for exhaust. A smell of exhaust screams head gasket leak. It doesn't sound like that to me.
You can also start the car from cold with the coolant cap removed and your hand in its place. Then you can see if it build compression in a few seconds against your hand. If so, it points to a bad HG.
See if you can look up how to check the timing with the timing marks and looking through the oil fill cap. As I understand, (on some rotations) you should feel compression build until you see the cam depress the exhaust valve on the frontmost cylinder. I can't give you more than that, sorry.
It's an 89, and unless it's got an LH2.4 system in it, you can't pull error codes AFAIK.
If you bang on the catalytic converter, does it rattle?
How does it run if you pull the cable from the AMM? (I don't know how to clear an engine code for the 89 - and on the 90+ series, it sets a code that ignores the AMM input until re-set.....)
I still don't know what to say about the steam...
Good Luck and post back!
Will
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1990 740 Turbo, on its way to stock specs, maybe beyond
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