The newbie guy here again, the one working on getting the 87 that sat for at least ten years back on the road. I've got the car running and have an exhaust on it. Not driven yet because it's still on jack stands until I go through the brakes (at least the front ones).

After I got the exhaust on it I was able to idle it in the garage for a longer period of time. The temperature gauge would get up to about a half a millimeter to the red and I would shut it off. Heater was not working. No leaks anywhere in the cooling system, so I immediately thought of the thermostat, that it wasn't opening properly and not circulating enough. I picked up a quickie replacement "Carquest Premium Thermostat" at Advanced, put it on and started it. It ran for about ten minutes and same thing on the gauge, didn't drop. I let the motor cool down and went back and started it again. This time the heater came on and I stuck it out for a while longer and the gauge dropped. I'm assuming the thermostat fixed the problem. I'm also happy to see that the heater core seems to be ok--that had me worried. Also, this engine is running very smooth, exhaust has no smoke of any color, no indication of coolant in the oil or vice versa so I'm also happy that the head gasket seems to be OK.

I have not done a radiator flush yet but that is coming.

My question is do these B230 engines typically get that close to the red zone on the temperature gauge before the temp drops? Is that just their nature?