I've read the many posts on cold weather and diesels etc. Wednesday it's supposed to be around 17 when I leave in the morning and not get above 30 the entire day. I will be driving quite a bit. Will my truck not get very warm and is it hard on it?

 

wont get to operating temp when its in the 30's or even 40's. wont hurt anything but your mileage

 

Mine gets to temp in those temps. Not even sure how cold it has to get before it won't stay at temp as long as I am driving it. You should not have a problem Tndiesel.

 

really? thats great seeing as you have the bigger injectors. i dont know how you manage that one? even at idle i wont get up to full temp when she is cold utside

 

Mine won't get to temp at idle either. Pretty hard to heat an engine at idle with egt's sometimes drop to 200 degree's. I don't think my injectors have anything to do with it either. They are operating on stock injector programming. The biggest thing with these trucks is one, The stock temp gauge is junk! It will never read accurate since you have no idea if the 0 or the M or the N is operating temp. And two the stock stat is too cold anyway! with the stock 195 stat my truck would not break 180 no matter what I was doing with the truck. Now once warmed up it stays a rock solid 200 unless it idles.

 

now i'm just the oppositte, mine will drop when cruising down the road, at idle it will go up just a little but once i am rolling down the highway she drops off

 

interesting!!?? How old is your stat?

 

That sounds like a stuck open thermostat or low or spent coolant, does it blow cold when on the highway?

 

even though its a cummins, my buddys truck does what coons does... we drove it to the coast the other day, and its in about the 40's here, but it would warm up to about 190deg (on his stock guage) and then the thermostat would open, take in all the cold water from the radiator, then go down to about 130deg and thermostat would close and it would warm back up to operating temp, and do that again.. whole way...

 

Thats called a good working system,your friend can try a winter front or just change the thermostat to a hotter one,I think coon is describing his truck to be cold on the highway and not warm up til he comes to an Idle

 

mine does basicly what the cummins does, i have good heat on the highway, the t-stat is only a couple months old, and the truck did the same thing on the old stat as the new, i replaced it when the water pump bearing died. my stat is not stuck and my coolant is good. i just cant keep the heat in the motor when its cold outside. at idle it wont even get to full temp like it does in the summertime. but it runs cooler on the highway. i havent paid any attention to what it does while towing in the winter. next chance i get i will have to pay attention

 

That's weird I live in a much colder climate than you do and the only time it cools off bad is if I let it idle too long are you using a winter front by chance? that might help with keeping the heat in

 

no cover for me, i have been contemplating what to use to build one. i am thinking of using plexiglass with some holes drilled in it. i was worried about the intercooler but then i keep seeing semi's with full covers and i know they are cooled so what is the big deal with covering ours?

 

maybe for poops and giggles try the cardboard thing ,Iuse a full cover from ford it works very well ,them semi's you see with the covers closed all the way are looking for trouble I know from experience,those trucks are designed around the turbo and inter cooler set up your trucks turbo was not designed for the inter cooler set up therefore I think you will be ok with covering it up all the way unless of course you are pulling something ,tinted plexiglass would look good I bet

 

are the covers from ford still available? that would be neat.