The other day I had to pull a 24' enclosed trailer around 700 miles through some winding and hilly roads. Across west Texas, and then down through south Texas. Trailer was empty for the most part, but it is a big wind pusher. My temp gauge stayed around 2/3 the way up the safe range. When climbing hills, it would get scary close to the edge of the safe range. I did not run in OD, only 4th gear and worked the gears as necessary to negotiate the hills and keep the RPM's up. My truck seemed way underpowered at times, for the task at hand. Here is the scoop on the truck:

1995 F350 4x4 bone stock, never had a programer on it. 194,000 original miles on it. standard tranny, zf-5 i believe. normal factory sized tires, no jumbo mudders here.

Thinking about getting a programmer to pull trailers a little better? Would a programmer keep the heat down? Will they add power, without sacrificing the life of my engine? Are they worth the money? What is a good one to go with. I don't want to drag race! Just tow and trailer, and hopefully save on some fuel.

Thanks for any input fellas.

 

I think you need to flush your cooling system. When is the last time you changed the coolant? Have you kept up on the sca additive? Just checking. Then you need an egt gauge to watch the exhaust temps before you put a chip in. A custom chip is best for these trucks, not a programmer.

Your sending unit could be bad too, but I'd think you'd notice something all the time then.

Quite a few options for chips. PHP, TW, Beans, BTS, DP, etc. There are others too.

 

Just bought the truck a month or so ago. I'll need to check on the coolant. Sca additive? What is that? Runs cool rest of the time. I'm going to start a thread about programmer/ chip preferences/experiences. Your input there would be appreciated as well. Thanks

 

SCA additive is to keep the cylinder walls from cavitating. It is important to keep up with that. If I were you, I'd flush the coolant system, and go to napa or the like and get some fleetcharge/fleetguard coolant. It already has the sca additive in it. 4 gallons of antifreeze and some distilled water.

 

Will do, thanks

 

What Darin said, these trucks are known for overkill on the cooling. Maybe check the radiator for mud, bugs etc. It shouldn't overheat, maybe your thermostat is stuck partially closed. Flush the system and drain using the two block drains to get of the junk out of there.

 

x2 with Darin and Glenn. I just saw my highest temps here the other day at 230* pulling 20k up a 6% grade from 4000 up to over 9000 and that sounds lower than your temps. I think I have a sticky t-stat. Wouldn't hurt to replace the t-stat while you flush the system.