cooling issue 1.9 watercooled

[robs5230]

my first w/c t25 and just want reassuring . my van runs with the temp guage a gnats under 1/2 way when under load. When on a constant flat road with no real effort maintaining about 50 mph the guage goes down to about 1/3 .
in traffic or idling for a while the guage may go to a gnats over half.
is this ok ??????????
after purchasing the van i thought i may have cooling issues so bled the sytem.
it seemed incredibly hard to do not completely getting rid of all the bubbles from the rad even with the van on a slope

but my van does run as above

any comments ?

[kevtherev]

My gauge sits at just under half way too.. on motorways and tootling around... but rises over half in traffic on a hot day to in between 1/2 and red... then the fan cuts in

[robs5230]

reassuring thanks . not even sure if my fan works how do i test?

[kevtherev]

you can test the fan easily enough but the controlling factor is the most important....the temp sensor in the radiator

simply short the temp thermoswitch wires together and the fan should work

switch is located on the radiator

if the engine gets hot and the gauge goes up to the red then the thermoswitch is faulty