Swapped it right after making that post. It had been parked for 4 hours, but coolant temp was still 113 when I started it back up. Topped it off and let it sit with the rad cap off and the heater going to burp all the air. Put the cap back on and cranked the AC and after a few minutes it got to exactly 185 and stayed there. Drove it for about 10 minutes at 55 (traffic, couldn't go faster), then exited and U turned and stopped at a few lights. Didn't move off 185 through all of that until I got stuck at one light for about 5 minutes. Got up to 190 and then was back down to 185 maybe 1.5 miles after the light going 35mph. Oil temp stayed at 197 through all of this.
Wife went with me, so we stopped for ice cream. After 10 minutes in the store, water temp showed 194 at startup and then immediately dropped to 188. I sat there idling with the AC on to see if it would drop but it went to 190, so I decided to get moving. About 2 minutes fighting traffic to get out of the little shopping center, water got back up to 194, oil got to 203. Ice cream place is 2 miles from my house through the neighborhood with stop signs and lights, water was back to 185 and oil back to 197 when I parked it up.
I think tomorrow in the heat of the day I'm just going to drive to my job and back and see what happens. It's about a 30 mile round trip, 90% of it at highway speeds. If that goes well I will order those 797 plates when I get back home. Even with the extra gasket it's still cheaper than a failsafe thermostat.
I really wish I'd done this sooner, but I thought it'd run too cool or the rad wouldn't be able to keep up and it'd overheat for real. The last few weeks have been a struggle. I pick up my step daughter from school after work now and the traffic leaving the school is a nightmare and I can't run the AC til we're almost home or it starts getting hotter than I'm comfortable with. I see people in hot climates on here saying that 215 is nothing to worry about, but anything over 210 and then all I can focus on is the damn cluster until it drops back below 200. When the thermostats are new, it sits at 186 cruising at 70, maybe 188 if its over 100 degrees outside. But over the last few weeks I've watched it creep up day after day. Coming home at 1pm today it was only 98 out but the truck was running at 201 cruising at 65.
I also learned through perusing this topic that I have the more restrictive grill, so may have to find one of the honeycomb flavors. I'm also seriously considering going back to the clutch fan. There's enough people that have done the swap that I ought to be able to find all the parts cheap enough. I'll try those plates first tho and see how they work. I didn't know they were a thing. Thanks again.