help! truck is way to hot

[FireChickenRacin]

Hey guys I thought I would post here too since most gen 3 people have hemi power and the 5.9 guys are in here any way lol im new to owning a dodge truck, ive had mine for 5 weeks now and its always ran cool. The previous owner just installed a new water pump and it ran about 1/3 of the way up the temp gauge and got close to half way mark only climbing the mountain going into yosemite. So everything is great then i leave work yesterday and it gets 3/4 and alittle higher on the temp gauge in traffic, on the freeway it only cools down to 2/3 up the temp gauge then climbs again when I stop. I did turn the fan by hand when I stopped and it feels like the fan clutch is to loose but my car experience is with 60's muscle so im not to sure on this, could my water pump have gone bad? Its full on coolant I checked thst too. On my muscle car I can pull the radiator cap and see if the thermostat has stuck can I check like that on these modern cooling systems? Any help is much appreciated idont want to hurt my new pride and joy. Btw 02 ram 1500 5.9l thanks!

 

[nim81]

i used to have an 02 with the 5.9
i would suggest getting a 180* thermostat and replacing the fan clutch.
ive had 2 different trucks with the 5.9 and a durango with the 5.2 and all three had to have the fan clutch replaced.

 

[FireChickenRacin]

Ok I was thinking the fan clutch had to go, did you replace yours with one from the dealer or aftermarket like napa? Also is the thermostat easy to get to on the 5.9?

 

[Bigtman07]

Thermostat is pretty easy It's under the alternator right on top of the intake. The clutch fan is a little more interesting to get off though.