Bought a 2000 Ram 3500 on ebay in December 06. Replaced a bent thermostat since engine could not reach operating temperature. Now on a hard pull engine goes up to 240. Boost drops down to 14 from 24. On my old 95 the heat guage would drop every time the thermostat opened. This 2000 stays at 190 to just a little over empty in town. But put the engine to work and the heat goes up pretty quickly. In April I could always hear when the clutch fan would kick in. Now in July some times I can hear the clutch fan some times I can not. Do clutch fans work sporadically?

 

Clutch fans come on when needed too cool things down but yours being a 2000 have you ever heard of the breather bottle? on the front of your motor there is a water battle with a hose in it or just a hose and what happens is the excess oil out of the breather will blow right in to your radiator and plug it tighter than a frogs you know what. Do a search on the forms for breather bottle relocation or breather bottle and you will get a wealth of information on how to clean your radiator to fixing it for good. Also if you are lugging the motor at all it will heat up and you need to down shift before it gets hot. Now on a long pull heavily loaded I have seen mine go above the norm but still in the safe zone but that was before i cleaned my radiator and moved the bottle.

 

DW, I changed to a 180 thermostat and cleaned my radiator (cooling fins) really well with degreaser and a garden hose. Works fine now.

 

a friend of mines 24 valve's radiator looked like it had a sweater on it, it was so dirty and nasty and it was running about 260 and was causing injection pump problems.