Welcome! You tow that trailer with a 4runner? Anyhooo. Those guages are not real. They are designed to slowly go to mid way as long as things are within range. By the time they go to hot, it's too late. You would probably want an OBD monitor to see both temps in real time while towing. What gears does it have? Towing mirrors? E rated tires? Your location (is rust a concern)?

The v10 Excursions are pretty reliable and you found the right forum.

 

No way about towing with the 4Runner.

We used to tow with a 98 Suburban 2500, but too many problems, mainly we we're overweight on it.
The gears I know is the lower set (3. Something), mirrors are fine, will be putting new E rated tires on it. The truck is from California, I honestly don't know if I should be concerned about rust, as I'm from Montana and have never had to buy down here.

Thanks for info on the gauges! So good to know. We need to make one trip (about 1500 miles) on it with minimal upgrades, do you think that is fine? It would be a trip up the 15 thru Utah then mostly flat thru Wyoming and North Dakota.

 

Exhaust manifold studs like to break and cause leaks, especially when cold starting.
The 4R100 trans is the weak link, many find it overheats in reverse with a trailer, adding the external 6L (5R110) trans cooler is a way to upgrade.
Adding a hellwig rear swaybar can help control the heavy trailer.
RAS (roadmaster active suspension) can be added on top of rear leaf springs to reduce squat and gain some height to the rear "weak original soccer mom springs".
Welcome to FTE! And the Excursion addiction.

 

I have a v10, and in the dead of winter i have full heat in less time than it takes to get out of ny neighborhood.

 

 

I have a V-10 in my 2000 F250 and I love it. It has over 215K miles and runs like a champ. I also have the diesel Excursion which I also love and have owned for 13 years. We tow a 20' boat with it. I've installed the Hellwig rear sway bar, added rear air bags to keep it from sagging, upgraded the front and rear rotors to slotted and drilled. I will eventually upgrade the front and rear leaf springs.

Are you in MT or just from?

 

Those seem like the sort of upgrades we need. And I'm a resident of MT, but depending on what's going on work wise for my hubs is where we'll be. I grew up in Great Falls thou. Are you from big sky? User name checks out 😜

 

Welcome!
You said that the mirrors are fine, but are they the dual arm extendable towing mirrors? If not then I would strongly recommend getting a set of them, compared to the small "dog ear" style mirrors the larger towing mirrors are leaps and bounds better for towing a trailer. And for about the same price the larger newer '08 + Super Duty tow mirrors will bolt right up to an EX, site sponsor 1AAuto has a large selection of mirrors and options to choose from if are upgrading.
The 3.73 gears will get you where you are going but expect to take the bigger hills a little more slowly with 9,000 lbs on the hitch. We towed our old 9,500lbs toyhauler for two years with our factory original 3.73 gears, it got the job done but with a lot of downshifting and slow hill climbs. We upgraded to 4.88 gears that had the V-10 EX pulling like a locomotive . Now with some larger 35" tall tires the effective gear ratio is 4.39 and that combo does a great job towing our 11,000 TT all over the Eastern States.
As was mentioned above the exhaust manifold studs tend to break on these motors which can lead to exhaust leaks. I removed all 20 of my original studs in the driveway, a MIG welder helped to get one of my two broken studs out and I drilled out the other broken one. I think a Boilermaker could easily tackle that job, the hardware is a lot smaller than he is used to I'm sure.
And also to echo another post above, monitoring the trans temperature while towing is a very good idea with this transmission, heat will kill them. I use a stand alone old school gauge to watch my trans temp but now there are some great apps for phones and tablets to allow monitoring via the ODBII port.
The EX will feel more truck like than the old Suburban, and in my opinion having towed with both a 2500 Sub and my EX the EX does a better job and the V-10 is a super reliable engine.

 

I'm in Billings and also grew up in Great Falls. Still have family there. THe Excursion is a great family rig and I think you will really like it. If it is 2WD might check to see if it has a locking rear end. Pretty handy for winter time

 

And as mentioned in some other threads here, I would check for rust no matter where I bought a vehicle these days. Unless it is a one owner and I know the owner, I cant be sure of where that vehicle spent its time. Carfax and where it was registered arent that big of help these days as people drive a lot more/further away than they used to. It should be obvious with a quick glance underneath if it has a rust issue. If it does, I would move on as there are too many good ones still out there to mess with rust.

 

I really wanted to come in here and give you some good advice.... but there isn't any left to give All I can say is the X is the best truck you'll ever own, get yourself a good one and take care of it and it'll do the same for you

 

Just to add to the information overload...

Check out the Tech Folder (it is a "sticky" thread at the top of the page, it contains TON so info organized in to groups to help with almost every technical question).