Cold rad on my 1.6 JX

[vag_glen]

Ok guys, my radiator on my JX powered Karmann Cheetah doesn't get hot to touch like my old 2.1 petrol bus did, When you open the bleed screw plenty of waters coming out ok, The heater gets red hot, best heater I've ever had in a van, The 2 main front to back coolant hoses get warm, the one from the thermostat housing gets warm but no where near as hot as the other one.
Tested the stat and thats opening ok.
After a run the rads warm to touch but not hot, So my question is...should the rad get very hot to touch when just idling? Do the diesels tend to run cooler on idle?
Im worried the vans not cooling the system as the rads not getting hot, The temp gauge has never gone higher than the LED, and I've never heard the fan kick in.
Any help will be much appreciated as wanting to drive 200 miles to Vanfest this weekend, but dont want to risk doing any damage

Ta Glen.

[peasant]

On idle the diesel only gets lukewarm ...whip it up a steep hill and it's a different story

[cascais]

although mine is a petrol 1.9,my rad only gets warm and im in portugal so pretty hot here,same as you one pipe in back is hot ,the other warm.ive had no prob with overheating,temp gauge stays in the middle,and as the last post said only gets hot uphill.

[pocolow]

On my JX the temp gauge rarely gets past the LED in the middle and that's going up some steep Welsh mountains. These vans would need the temp gauge to get to 3/4 before the fan would kick in. You can always test the fan by pulling off the wire on the rad thermo switch and connect the terminal of the wire plug with a scrap piece of wire and the fan should kick in...

Mark