[MR2] Sparatic temp gauge

[Ethan Adams]

Hey there, so I just had to put a new engine into my 91 non turbo
because I had a bearing seize up! So that wasn't fun. Luckily I know a
mechanic who helped me out by letting me and two friends use his shop
and tools to do it. I still put in a non turbo engine just because of
the cost but when we finished we took it out and it feels like its
running better than ever except for the fact that when I looked at the
temperature gauge on the dash its been displaying it as right below
red! So I thought it was over heating and released the pressure in the
radiator and made sure that the engine had enough antifreeze.
Afterwards I started it and it still said it was over 3/4's up on the
gauge. So I opened the lid again the engine really isn't that hot at
all. It was warm but still cool enough that we could reach in and mess
around with our hands inside while it was still running.
So we decided that we know its not over heating at least and chose to
just drive it home. It did make it the full seven miles and didn't
have any problems except that the gauge would spike up and down
randomly when accelerating or decelerating. It wouldn't have any
problems from that except that whenever the temperature spiked ABOVE
red the check engine light would flash and the engine would choke and
try to die for just a second. Im not 100 percent positive that it only
flashed and choked when it went over red but that seemed to be the
most common thing.
Im not sure if the two things are connected or seperate issues but im
hoping and assuming that it has to do a false reading of the
temperature.. also we decided we will go ahead and make sure that the
timing is correct too and maybe thats what the issue is behind the
choking. I was just gonna ask if you all had any thoughts, advice,
ideas, suggestions, anything to help try to fix this thing. So
anything is helpful!

Ps: to better describe the "choking" is its a lot like when your
stopped in first gear and release off the clutch and normally it would
die except with this it doesn't fully die... it doesn't seem to have
any connection to the clutch either though.

-- 
~ Ethan