2.8 turbo diesel running too cool? cold?

[lewis]

Well ive just replaced every water hose under the bonnet (except the one below the aircon pump but it looks new and im guessing gets done each time by mechanics when they do the belts if they are being sensible) and put a second hand radiator in (it seems almost new/recored)
My rad was pretty rusted out, and some of the crusty water hoses i pulled off were almost SOLID with rust. Spent close to $200 on hoses though, hard to make your own given a lot of the sharp bends. The heater hoses actually kink with the body lift but if you shove them on the pipes further they flatten out and work fine. I dropped the radiator about 2" to suit the lift and had to drill new mounting holes as it seems mu's have different mounts.
I think the body lift will assist with engine cooling as there is now much more space for air to flow around it and the top of the radiator.
Anyway at 1/4 on gauge which is normal operating for me my aftermarket gauge only reads 70 degrees And yes its a cheap piece of crap gauge so probably not accurate and havent seen over 80 yet.
Since this is normal on the standard gauge im not really worried, might check the thermostat out of interest though. Have noticed since cooling system overhaul engine takes a lot longer to warm up and cools down much faster so all sorted for summer

[lewis]

Mounted my temp gauge in top hose.
Gotta remove the standard airbox to either make a snorkel with the k&n or mod the standard box

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[lewis]

Oh another change I made was not to vent the crankcase breather back into the air intake (wow so much blowby, guess its expected with 340km) and yes im going to reconnect the rad overflow tank, its only got water in it at the moment as a flush, got to drain and refil with antifreeze mix

[lewis]

Well after doing a lot of driving and looking at temp gauges today I think it is actually running a bit below a quarter - so a bit colder than it was before I did the work on the cooling system. Another reason maybe that when dropping the radiator due to the surface it sits against isnt flat meaning its about 10mm closer to the fan (still plenty of clearance) so will cool better. Too bad the first cheap temp gauge I bought was faulty or I would have had it in before I did the changes/maintenance. I also checked thermostat and it wasnt ceased open but did leak a drop every few seconds when closed so might consider replacing this at the end of summer.

[geeves]

possible problem with that temp guage setup. If you loose water due to split hose it will show cold right up to when the engine siezes. At least in the thermostat housing it gets some heat and will show an overheating engine with no water even if this is still a 50 50 chance of catching it in time

[lewis]

Yeah good point, but since I have both the standard gauge and this one working, and just replaced all hoses should be good till the engine dies in some other way

[isumu]

Hmmm... Should I be worried that my temp gauge is always at halfway once warmed up then?