Hm, the factory gauge is acting questionable at best. It was climbing mighty high today, but never all the way (a bit beyond mid way) to the point i pulled off a couple times to be safe. But I think it's getting stuck sort of and continuing to climb rather than going down and up. I tapped it while going down the road and it instantly dropped a lot once. Then never got up mid way again.
I had 25-30mph (or more gusts?) cross winds blowing me all over the place. I was mostly doing 45mph on 2 lane back highways (almst no traffic) for most of the 60 miles I had to go today. A portion, about 15 miles total between 2 stretches, had it purely as a tail wind, I was doing 60 with almost no throttle.
The wind was so bad, it knocked my awning brackets loose and they were dragging on the road after just a mile in the wind. I had to stop and gorilla tape the brackets to help it stay still, and wrapped a bungee cord around the lock switch thing to keep it from unrolling, which is what caused it. Thank goodness for a wide shoulder and almost no traffic on that back highway. It stayed put the rest of the way.
I'm at my summer destination now, where I won't be driving more than 2-3 miles total a day, no more than twice a week, maybe once. I got the PO box opened today too. So, I'm going to order the Motorcraft fan clutch shortly, and hold onto it until this fall. It won't ever see full operating temp for at last 3 months, if not 4-5. In a couple months, once my finances get more stable (the reason I came up here to begin with, it's so cheap here, plus no 110 degree heat..) I will order a mechanical water temp gauge and install that first. Then I can see what it's actually doing.
There are no free rental tools within 35-40 miles of here, so I'll have to at least drive that far, if not 60 (so I don't go out of my way this fall when I leave) to access the free rental fan clutch tool. So, at least I'll have a real temp gauge to go by until I get the fan clutch replaced. Unless a Napa about 10 miles away has them. But i'd rather wait.