I just did my first oil change on the rado and what a huge pain in the ***! I pretty sure the last person to tighten the oil drain plug was a F@#king Gorilla! It took me 45 minutes to get it off with out stripping it.

After I got that done i put in 25% lucas oil and also added the water wetter to the radiator. So far so good it runs smoother. I don't think the water wetter has worked in to the system yet but it claims up to 20% reduction in temps. we'll see how it works with the 180 thermostat.

 

Wait till you do the tranny service, you might be better off getting another pan cause the plug on the stocker usually will not come out.

 

Just a heads-up - the 180° tstats are usually actually about 186°± tstats which is extremely close to stock, so you likely will see very little difference in operating temperature.

Might want to consider a 160°.

 

my 180 reads dead on at normal operation. I didn't get the 160 because of cold temp driving during hunting season up north. my gauge was reading about 210 with the stock one.

 

weird... my 180 reads more like 185 or 190 but my stock one did more like 195 or 200, definitely not 210... i guess its the different engines...

 

my 160 stat makes my gauge read 185-ish.

 

tiny engine in a big truck might explain it.

 

yea those bitty engines dont run the same.