engine temperature started climbing through colorado mountains

[Hemmen1]

I am running a 2001 with six speed and the only performance mod is an edge EZ, I recently pulled a 13,000 lb. trailer through the mountains in colorado and had to back off the throttle numerous times because the engine temperature was rising to the danger zone, the "check guages" light came on one time when the temp was near the red zone, is anyone else having this problem?? Darren

 

[wyosteve]

Hem, I ran into that situation on one occasion. Pulling Raton Pass this summer when the air temp was about 95 and I was pulling around 10k. Just back off a bit and it cooled right down. Although it did get hot enough to melt my boost gauge line at the manifold!

 

[speedracer]

I don't pull a trailer that heavy, but I wouldn't think it should get that hot. Was the fan clutch operating properly, did the fan engage when it got hot?

 

[claymike]

Did your fan clutch come on? I had the same thing happen with my 98. 5 took in to Cummins and it turned out to be the thermostat and a bad fan clutch.



Mike

 

[klenger]

What axle ratio do you have and what gear/RPMs were you at. I pull a 10,000 lb 5er in Colorado and have had no problems with engine temps at all, although I don't think the weather was all that warm when I was towing with this combo. It might help to downshift and get the RPMs higher. I assume that you did not have an EGT guage, but higher RPMs would also reduce the EGT's.

 

[fest3er]

Originally posted by Hemmen1

I am running a 2001 with six speed and the only performance mod is an edge EZ, I recently pulled a 13,000 lb. trailer through the mountains in colorado and had to back off the throttle numerous times because the engine temperature was rising to the danger zone, the "check guages" light came on one time when the temp was near the red zone, is anyone else having this problem?? Darren

By recently, do you mean winter? When it's quite cold out? If so, you should not see your engine temp climb that much, and if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say your t-stat is sticking, not letting coolant flow through the radiator.



Fest3er

 

[LSMITH]

EGT can also get quite high towing with an EZ and not having installed the elbow or a turnbuckle on the wastegate. Did you address the wastegate? What were the EGT's like when the coolant temps were so high?



All of the temps in the engine will be lower pulling at 2500 RPM than they would be with the same load and 1800 RPM. Downshifting is a good suggestion as Ken mentioned.

 

[jwdeeming]

I've had this problem too. There's been other threads about this and the concensus seemed to be that the thermostat was the culprit. I happened to be on my way for one of my last dealer checkups, so I asked them about it. They said that my thermostat was "within spec", but they'd be happy to replace it for me for about $80!



Someone posted that a good thermostat to run is Cummins part number 3934375. I haven't done that yet since it's the cold season, but I'll have to for towing the horse trailer over Eisenhower during the summer months.