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hey i just bought a 93 l series, and as i was driving it away from picking it up the temp gauge went right up to the first bar of the hot reading so i pulled over and checked the motor but it didn't show any signs of overheating. i was really careful with her at first but now ive just accepted that the gauge is reading wrong so i have been driving around with it reading very hot but its suffering no overheating issues just shows that its getting really hot

weird any help

not getting hot where ? radiator or engine block itself?

I bought a near pristine 88 TWagon that had 'done a head gasket' and temp gauge climbed quickly - didn't bother to feel if hot under bonnet. Replaced the thermostat with a used one and fixed problem - drove it for three weeks before taking it off the road. Just yesterday pulled its heads off to find they were fine. One head is cracked between valves. One plug lost half its ceramic so explains the slight miss at cold start - otherwise ran really well. One belt was slack as.

Try a thermostat to see if things change. Cheapest I can offer you at this stage

Dont trust if its just your radiator thats cold. I had a brumby where the radiator was cold *because all the coolant had leaked out of it*

Check that the engine itself is actually hot i normally just keep the internal heater/fan on to monitor the temperature its not great but gives you an idea.

The other thing to check is that you have the electrics in the dash wired right (no shorts etc) in my corolla the temperature gauge read above caution when the engine was cool because the dash itself had blown because the horn was shorting to the chassis.

Going to be annoying for you to sort out but hopefully it wont be too hard.

If I were you, I'd replace the thermostat to a new one, and reverse flush the radiator and flush it out... put water back in and let it run till operating temperature, have a feel on the radiator (be careful with the fans & it might be hot) and check if there is hot and cold areas, if you find the 1st half is hot and other half is cold could be a sign of blocked radiator.. Thats something I would be looking at.
Cheers
AP