I forgot to mention that on our way to and from camping, we had problems with BOTH vehicles overheating. On the way out, the truck was overheating really bad, and the Subaru wasn’t much better. But since the Subaru has an electric fan, it could cool off much faster than my truck when the engine is off. And the truck had about a ton in the bed, and another half-a-ton being towed behind, so it wasn’t a big surprise. It took us about four times longer than it should have to reach the campground.
While we were camping, I removed the thermostat from the truck so the coolant would just flow through the engine all the time, and on the way home, it worked very nicely. It didn’t even get up to its normal operating temperature until we had travelled ten miles or so, when normally it would have done so in about two miles. But when we reached the big uphill part of the drive home, it started overheating a little bit (not nearly as bad as before), and the Subaru was also getting pretty hot, so when we reached the top of the hill, we stopped to let both vehicles cool off a bit. I got out of the truck to open the hood so it would cool off faster, and there was coolant leaking out of the damned radiator. I think I may have overfilled the radiator after I’d removed the thermostat, because once the coolant stopped leaking out, I tried to open the radiator cap and coolant gushed out into the overflow, so I know there was still pressure at the top. So I just let it cool off some more, then headed home and didn’t have any more problems.
I’d like to get rid of both of these damn vehicles, but I still don’t have enough money to get something that’s not shitty.