Once upon a time, my truck would hardly ever get hot while towing...even in 110 degree heat up a 6% grade. Then a few years ago I noticed the temp gauge in the instrument cluster increasing towards the upper end of the Normal range. Last week it got right up to the upper limit of the Normal range so I had to back out of the throttle to keep temps in check. Eventually I even pulled over for 3-5 minutes just to let it cool off before I finished my climb.

Granted it was super hot that day....setting records all over the region but still seemed abnormal. So I decided to go ahead and pull the radiator just to have it checked out. Externally it looked obstructed. My estimate was a 15-20% restriction...the radiator shop tested the air flow and it measured 30% blockage. The interior wasn't much better, they estimated a 25% restriction in the tubes. $103 later and it's all clean with new tank O-rings and pressure tested. I'll slap it in tonight and see if it runs cool again.

EDIT: Notice how the hitch is visible though the fins in the lower picture.

 

I've seen alot of them that way. That"s the first thing I do when somebody says "my trucks starting to run hot". Its amazing how all that can make it through the I/C and get stuck in the radiator. usually there is enough dirt and hair to make a small dog.

"Sometimes your truck talks to you....and sometimes you talk to it"


Barney

 

Nice clean up job - That should make a big difference right there.

 

Good Lord!

Mine is well over 13 years old and has as of today 380K on it. Think I may need to have that done before summer is out...Thanks Greg!

 

Yikes!! One more thing for me to worry about!

Off topic here a bit but I'm curious to know, are the stock temp gauges in our trucks actually accurate?? I just wonder sometimes cause once my truck gets warm it never moves no matter how hard I run the truck, what I'm towing or how hot it is outside...

 

What he said ^^^ I've never had mine move once its warm even running it really hard.

 

No, they are basically idiot lights. When they register hot the engine is way hot. The PCM is able to read temperature but the gauge in the dash is not very accurate.

 

that is clean. i guess i will have to wash mine out now.

 

My truck didn't talk to me a few weeks ago, but left a little "mark" on the garage floor to tell me something was wrong. I came home that evening to find a small puddle of ELC on the concrete. Sure nuff, I opened the hood to find a crack in the upper radiator tank near the inlet neck. What was even more surprising was when I went to remove the radiator, I found the neck was completely broken in two and the clamp was keeping it together. Half the neck was inside the hose and took only 1/4 turn to remove it. Talk about lucky! I had lost only about a cup of ELC. With ~209k miles, and over 12 yrs on the clock, I replaced the whole thing.

 

O it was talking to you, just like the dog does when it pee's on the floor! LOL!

Better in the garage than on the road!

 

My old 00 F350 with 210K was much WORST than that because of oil leak. We powerwash it and saw 3 mpg gain after that. Before that we would hear a fan spin all times like airplane jet.

 

Just to follow up to on my original post....
The clean radiator did the trick. I pulled the RV home and the temp gauge hardly budged off the normal running position, even while pulling the long steep grades. I estimate I was just over 24k lbs gross on the trip home...

I towed with the F-250 this season since my F-450 is having apparent fuel delivery issues. I guess after 14 years of use the radiator in my pickup lost some of it's capabilities due to internal and external blockages. I am not sure what caused the internal blockages but the radiator shop said that deposits form over time at the lower ends of the cooling tubes and restrict or even completely stop the flow through the tubes. Hot coolant enters up top and flows down to the lower tank so maybe the temperature change has some sort of effect that causes the deposits to collect inside the tubes. They showed me some other radiators that were pretty bad and not salvageable...the material looked like calcium deposits or some other sort of mineral.

The external blockages just looked like 14 years of road grime. I've blown out the radiator fins with compressed air about 3 or 4 times since I've owned the truck but that doesn't really clean off the junk very well. When I picked up my cleaned radiator I saw another customer who had taken his intercooler to get cleaned....it looked brand new. I think I'll pull mine out and have it cleaned as well. I think they only charge $40-$50 for a cleaning....I wonder how easy it is to remove that thing...

In retrospect, I wish I had pulled the radiator and had it cleaned years ago. it's super easy to do and the cost to have it cleaned, new o-rings and pressure tested is less than a tank of fuel so it seems like a reasonable thing to do, especially for those that tow often or heavy (or both).

 

Shake -n- bake
I am willing to bet that the deposits that you speak of are silica deposits that precipitate out of the coolant. Read SCA treatments for non E-1 ELC coolant. This is also what a lot of people refer to as "casting sand" in the radiator as I am pretty certain that engine blocks are pretty well rinsed and cleaned before they are machined as well as after so there should not be any residual casting material left behind.

 

I've been thinking the same thing as well. Ford says to check the coolant every 12k-15k miles and add doses as needed. That stuff has to go somewhere?

A read an article in a fleet trade magazine a few months ago that suggested coolant bypass filtration was no longer necessary in over the road engines when using OAT coolant. I wonder if that is true or not?

 

S & B
I don't remember if it was in one of Gooch's write ups or someone else but they described in detail what was going on with the "SCA" type of coolant vs the CAT ELC-1 rated coolant. I think that if ELC-1 coolant is used a filter is unnecessary.
As to the sand issue, sand is silica, at least most types are.