problem is - after flushing cooling system and adding new coolant and thermostat - that the gauge tends to stay in the 8:40 position with cooling fan kicking in at 9:00.
Before change of coolant and thermostat the normal postion was 9:00 with fan kicking in at 9:50.

this is exactly the same problem as I and others have had. anyone got any idea why the fan now kicks in at a lower reading than usual?

did you bleed system properly?

well, I have hot air from the heater very quickly, so everything seems to circulate ok. Don't think there's an airlock. Can't remember if I opened the bleed screw or not. fan activates automatically when car has been idling for a while. seems like quite a few people have this problem..or maybe its not a problem i wonder if the sender unit got overheated while the coolant levels were "settling down", like maybe there was an air pocket temporarily.

if you cant rember undoing a bleed screw then you have air lock, there are 2 bleed screws, one on top of rad, one at back of engine on heater hose,
undo both, fill header tank right to the top squeze all the hoses, keep repeating this untill a fair amount of coolent is coming out of both bleed screws, then do up the back one, keep squezing hoses so coolent keeps coming out of rad bleed screw untill the coolent is at max, do up screw, replace rad cap, run engine untill fan comes on, then let it cool for hours, then check level top up to max if needed

thanks for the advice...i will do that now

ok...bled system...coolant coming out both bleedscrews. same problem. needle sits at 8:40 position unlessits idling, then it goes to 8:45 position and fan kicks in. So after the fan kicked in I switched the engine off and got a meat thermometer (you know, for making sure the roast is cooked all the way through ) I took off the oil filler cap and put the thermo probe into the cam area and it registered 87 degrees. Then I slowly removed the coolant filler cap and measured the water temp there which was 75 degrees. I think that the temp sensor may sending a faulty reading to the gauge.Surely fan should only come on when the needle gets to to about the 9:50 position. I have ordered a new one, so I guess I'll just have to wait and see.