I had a radiator shop give a ok on flow test once,& after several new parts & labor a new radiator solved my problem,luck I dont get anything for my labor.

 

Right now my gut is telling me number 1. My A/C condenser looks a little rough, I'm just not sure what to do about it. Maybe it would be easier to replace the condenser or is there a way to clean it with out removing it? I looked at the inter cooler and I couldn't see any debris at all and if I had to guess its ok. I might replace the temp sensor just to be on the safe side.

 

You can use a Fin Tool to straighten them. A good degreaser and garden hose will do the rest.

 

I understand how frustrating this issue can be!! Based on experience with my 2000 F-350 7.3, I'm might suggest that you have a partially clogged radiator. Mine acted the same way and it took me almost a year to get it completely figured out. I replaced a LOT of other stuff without success and I had my radiator to a couple radiator shops for tests that came back "OK". During this time I couldn't tow anything, or drive up mountain grades, or even drive over 70mph without the temp gage going up, up, up! While working on it one day, I accidentally knocked the radiator over while it was out of the truck, and it landed on the top inlet, which cracked the plastic radiator top. So I took it to have another top put on it. When the top of the radiator was removed, they noticed a large portion of the internal passages of the radiator were totally stopped up. Water could go through it from the inlet to the outlet, but only a portion of those internal passages were being used. A very nice radiator repair guy took the bottom off the radiator and "rodded" out the blocked tubes. After that, no more problems!! At that point, I changed the truck over to the gold coolant and I never touched to cooling system again. I'm not sure what might have caused this condition to start with. Perhaps deposits from un-distilled water maybe? Good luck! I hope you get it figured out!


You can read about my adventure here:

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/2...g-problem.html

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/2...g-problem.html

 

You could get it hot, shut it off and shoot the radiator with a temp gun. Any cool spots will tell you of the radiator is the issue.

 

I wish I had a temp gun that might help narrow things down a bit because I really hate guessing at whats going on. I'm going to check at work and see if anyone has one that I can borrow.

 

Do you have Torque, or another way to read the oil temp from the PCM? If your dash temp gauge is telling the truth, your oil temps are going to be really high.

Mark

 

There's been more then one person on here that changed everything and nothing worked till they changed the radiator. Go for it, it will work.

 

LOL! Ya, I hear what your saying. A lot of the stupid stuff has been eliminated, probably should do that.

 

It didn't work.

In fact things got worse. Changed out the radiator today, hooked up the trailer and drove about 5 miles and had it near the red. This is driving me nuts!!!!

What gives? My next idea is to go get some heater hose and unhook the heater core and dump fluid into a bucket to make good and sure that the water is getting moved by the pump. Maybe the impeller has sheared off of the shaft? I can't think of what else might be causing the problem.

After the truck got hot I stopped on the side of the road to let it cool. After it sat for awhile I put on some protective gear and cracked open the cap to the tank, the fluid rushed back into the holding tank right away and after replacing the cap it rushed right back down and emptied the tank again. I'm guessing this is just Boyle's law at work?

What gets me is that this is most likely a simple problem and I'm not getting to the bottom of it very fast. I didn't feel like the radiator was the root problem and that is the 'only' thing that I've gotten right so far.

Ok, thanks for listening to my truck rant for this afternoon. I really appreciate every one's input on the issue in trying to help me figure this thing out. You folks are about the only thing that keeps me sane when I'm having a go-around with stuff like this. Thanks Again for listening!!!

 

Have you been able to see what the temperature actually is? Does it ever boil over? You could even go get a cheap candy thermometer and stick it directly in the tank after the thermostat opens.

 

Big ten four on the boil over. I'm not too sure it popped the cap right off when I stopped the first time, I found fluid all over and the cap sitting sideways on the tank. I felt the upper hose and it was roasting and there was no fluid in the tank to measure. Steam was rolling out of the pressure cap.

Tonight I pulled the heater core return line off and dumped it straight into the coolant recovery tank. Thats a 5/8 line and it was flowing out pretty good, so that kind of blows my theory on a bad impeller.

 

With no pressure in the system, check your lower hose while it's hot and see if it seems overly mushy. It's possible it could be collapsing. I haven't seen it happen in years, but it used to pop up once in a while. Many lower hoses used to actually have a metal spring inside them to prevent that from happening.

 

I'll check on that tomorrow. Should have taken a look at that while it was over heated this afternoon.

Seems like the truck would over heat driving normal as well as pulling the trailer with as fast as it over heated pulling the trailer. Wonder if the lower hose has a spring in it? Its been two years since I put it in so I really don't remember.

 

Sorry on the radiator. I've seen many that have replaced thermostat, then water pump more then once with the 7.3L and then cure the problem with the radiator, so I apologize for steering you wrong. Check the hose, then put a pressure gauge on the cooling system let it idle for a while and see what pressures you get. Hopefully its not something serious. Without going back and reading the whole thread I had thought you already changed the pump and thermostat with OEM. If you get 16lbs or more after idling for a while you have a real problem.