Brain trust, I am coming to you with as much information as possible for your opinion. The old Sauce would have provided much less, so hopefully what I have gathered is sufficient to aid in a final determination. I believe the external T-Stat is shot on my '78 Targa...it is original to the car as far as I can tell from the history of receipts I have as well as me knowing I've not replaced in my 12yr owner ship...
Here goes: Car runs amazing, has a euro 3.0 (less than 10k miles on case-split rebuild, makes a ton of power, uses .5Q of oil in 3k mi) and Carrera front fender cooler. That said, Over the last season I've noticed it comes up to "temp" much sooner than in the past so I started digging.
I verified that the oil temp sensor and gauge in the car have corresponding numbers, and below is pic of temp in car when "hot"... First temp reading taken at motor was at the temp sensor, that showed 184F, which correctly correlates to what gauge shows:
Additional temps taken at the same time when car was running and "hot" or at operating temp show above:
The below all in the RR fender:
Oil Line from engine to external tstat housing: 207F
Oil return line from tstat housing back to tank: 126F
Oil line from tstat housing up to front cooler: 154
Oil return line from front cooler: 139
The below in FR Fender:
Oil line to cooler: 103F
Oil Return: 100F
Cooler itself: 84F
Ambient: 68F
I am thinking I will be pulling the oil lines, cooler, and tstat housing to clean and rebuild.
What are the opinions here?
Lastly, it's apparent the motor is basically only being cooled by the engine oil cooler and using the bypass in the loop to do so... I'm astonished that temps never really get above the 9 O'Clock or 200-210F mark given that...