Thermostat problem or something else?
I have a 1998 Ford Explorer and have had a problem. The temperature gauge will slowly rise as I'm driving and will go to the top to indicate a hot temperature. I take my foot off the gas, and the gauge goes down. Once the gauge goes down, it will bottom out at the half way mark like always and will stay there, I thought. Until today, when the gauge did it again. It bottomed out, but I had to stop and wait for traffic before I could turn. This caused the problem to start again. Any ideas? Like I said, it goes down when I take my foot off the gas, it hits the half-way mark, and stays there until I stop. It started Monday night, didn't do it at all on Tuesday, and did it again today. And it does it first thing in the morning, and stop usually in less than 5 minutes of driving.
If anything, I would think it was the coolant level. There was a leak in the truck that I could see and smell. I fixed the visual part, but I can still smell burning anti-freeze when driving a while. So I'll put whatever anti-freeze I have left in the radiator before going to school. Flushing sounds easy, I can do that myself, as well as the thermostat. Thanks for the help!