78 Alfetta Sedan running a bit hot

["Ted Williams" <tedw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Digesters,

I have been lurking for quite some time now, and am only now working ever so
slowly through my backlog of unread digests (ok, so I am skipping most of them).

After finally getting my 78 Alfetta Sedan up and running, as well as licensed,
I have noticed a slight problem. The car had been running fine, nothing out of
the ordinary, but coming home from my parent's house on Father's Day (after
trying to sell our junk...I mean parts at the APE Swap Meet) I looked at my
gauges and suddenly noticed that the coolant temp was up to 250 and my red "oh
crap!" light was on. I quickly pulled over to check the car out. I couldn't
find anything wrong. After the car cooled down a bit I tried driving the last
15 miles home, with the heater on. The car was fine...temp was a little bit
higher than normal. 

I checked the car out again a couple of nights later, but found no problems. I
admit, I'm not the most adept that mechanics, but I figure I would have found
something major if it had been there. I had installed a new thermostat almost
a year ago, but hadn't really driven the car in 6 months. I had also, at that
time, replaced the intake manifold, and flushed the coolant. 

My father suggested getting a radiator cleaner from an auto parts store, and
flushing the radiator out...or taking it to a radiator shop. I am going to
give this a go, but wanted to see if anyone had any ideas...or other things I
could check. What else would make the temp spike like that.

Also, I should add that I've driven the car 3 times since then, and have
noticed that the temp is a little higher than normal each time...but never
spiked like it had before.

Thanks,

Ted

CA
78 Alfetta Sedan
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