Hello everyone...

A funny thing happened to bring me here. Well, not really funny...

We recently moved from Michigan to Texas, and there seems to be quite a lot more heat here than we had in Michigan, so I don't want to mess around with potential overheating as I know it can destroy head gaskets - just ask my old Ford Windstar...

Anyway, a few days ago I noticed that the temp gage was just touching the red zone on a couple hundred mile trip. I watched it constantly and looked for any signs of trouble, but the gage was the only indicator. I later noted that though the needle started at the complete bottom of the gage, once the vehicle was started it immediately jumped to the halfway point, even though it was sitting for hours, if not overnite, prior to starting (several observations). Yesterday, just to be safe, I put in a new thermostat, then filled the lost fluid with straight water. Ooooooo. Now it jumps pretty quick to nearly the top of the gage.

Given the circumstances I am fairly comfortable saying that it is not an overheating problem, but given the hot climate I want to fix the problem ASAP. Don't know where next to start - the gage, the sensor, a wiring harness? Also, about the only thing I can easily locate is the gage - aka - I don't know where the sensor or anything else of interest is.

As I am presently looking at about $1,250 to replace the air conditioner compressor and related, I rather not spend any more money (that I don't have for that matter). Can anyone give me a good plan to try to fix this myself?

How many days need go by without answer until cross-posting is allowed?