by the way, pappa_wolf, i have a couple friends that live in norway. one was my moms foreign exchange student in the 80s, and a few years ago, he came to visit with his son, and so did our german exchange student from 04.

 

now, thats cool.
we had a couple, of senior citizens visiting us, in the 90. At that time, I was still in my early teens, and having those old geezers talking to me, was fun, but not really that fun.
until one of the ladies, whipped out her photoalbum, and started showing me, every place she had ever been.
I didnt care about the places, but the cars where very cool.
nice lady, wonder what she`s doing now!

 

lol! you sound like me!

 

ok , so heres my 2 cents...our F350 crew with 2500lbs of tow equipment installed clocks in at 9700lbs + with my fat a$$ in it, my fuel gauge has never worked so i just run 150 miles per tank ( for a total of 300 miles since theres 2 tanks ) and then go fill up, i have been averaging 14-16mpg if i do lots of stop and go ( guess all that weight eats up some of the torque from the banks sidewinder, huh ? ) however, i go from town to ewa every weekend and back to pick up/drop off our boys, roughly about a 160 mile round trip overall, and all that mostly-flat freeway rolling ( at 55mph since thats the legal limit here.seriously, i really never speed because its a monster fine and my insurance would go through the roof as well so i keep it at 55mph ) seems to push it solidly into the 20-21.5mpg range. thats flat-out OUTSTANDING for whats basically an almost 20 year old, 10000lb vehicle with the aerodynamics of a brick wall and dinosaur tech injection. i actually re-calculated several tanks because i thought i was screwing up the math somewhere ! 'and just think, its the old,junky,mechanically injected p.o.s. motor, not the new powerstroke' ( according to my younger son ), i am sure the stock 235/85/16 tires @ 90psi , the 4:10's , the banks turbo, the twin 3" stacks with glasspacks, the warn manual hub conversion, and the E40D help a lot, but still...i am very very impressed. and, she will pull ANYTHING as long as im over 1800rpm, even better from 2200rpm and up all the way to the limiter. these are great old trucks, sometimes you want to burn em and collect the insurance when they start giving you grief, but overall they rock !

 

hey,i thought you sold the old girl Chip! good to see you kept her.so you just got done the tow business,and kept it for a daily driver then i see.
hope you had good luck selling the towing equipment and didn't take to much of a beating on that stuff.them are indeed impressive FE numbers.

 

yeah, we basically couldnt get a nickle for her in this market, and besides--what would i replace her with ? and i couldnt get anywhere near decent prices for the tow equipment, so daily driver status it is--as is, tow equipment and all ! and as a plus, i can still tow moms car, my brothers car, my friends, etc...and occasionally luck out and run across some poor b@st@rd whos stuck on the side of the road-in the same direction i was going anyway.... hey, buddy--need a tow ? hah hah......

 

so my trans fluid has been running under the recommended minimum of 150 degrees very often.and always (without the plow on) in the winter.so in prep for cold weather;
i installed a Derale fluid control t-stat (180 degree) for my B&M super cooler.
it was pretty easy really.

Over 40 percent of total energy loss in a transmission can be attributed to the act of pumping automatic transmission fluid (ATF) to the transmissions components during transfer of power. The mechanical efficiency of an automatic transmission is directly affected by the viscosity of the transmission fluid. When temperatures drop and cause ATF to thicken, transmission efficiency and power decline. Industry tests on torque loss demonstrate that a temperature increase of 150 degrees F increases transmission efficiency by up to 37.5 percent. In other words, as viscosity decreases, transmission efficiency increases.

i also just installed that little e-fan for the cooler too.this way i wont have to stop and wait for the trans to cool this winter when plowing.i can just hit a switch and let her cool while pushing.........hopefully lol.
yesterday i also swapped out semi synthetic rear diff oil for mobil 1 fully synthetic and last week or so,i also pumped out the front diff and filled that with mobil 1 fully synthetic gear lube as well.
i hope to see these things combined pushes me up just the little extra.these should help especially for fall and winter at least.

jump to updated installation:
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/7...l#post10776052

edit 11/24/2011
now that it's really hard core winter,i can see it best to just install this before the radiator.it would be much better.it still takes an half hour driving (empty 8k lb truck) to reach ideal minimum trans operating temp of 150.not good enough for me.i know fuel economy,and my trans will be happier if i can get her up to 175ish most of the time.still seeing too low numbers even with the grill blocked off with a winter grill cover AND no fan on! (iv got electric cooling fans) these radiators are monsters and overkill (when empty) especially in the winter months.
it takes towing my chipper below converter lock up speeds still,to get it up to ideal temps this time of year.
seems odd most folks have issues trying to keep things cool enough,when most of my time spent is try to get 'em warm enough.
i should mention though,even with just the bypass of the aux cooler,it's much better than last year.last what i did was threw a sheet of cardboard over the aux cooler,what sucked though was getting out and removing it when needed,and putting it back on latter (usually no more than just a few mins down the road lmao.) highly recommended the t-stat for all auto trans.it's so much better.

 

man ur charging system must love u and all ur e fans

 

well iv got the 3g alt from the factory being a '93 of course,and the e-fans hardly ever run.the trans cooler fan wont be used all the much either.just there in case (or when plowing.)
my dump,plow and glow plugs are the big power suckers.but iv never run into any issues there since they're all just used momentarily.

well i took her out for a drive with trans t-stat in place bypassing just the external cooler.the radiators cooler i figured was best left alone to help warm up the fluid.
boy was i right.i quickly got up to 150 and she hung around 160-170 instead of 130-140ish at best when empty.
i had to shift her into manual 2nd to speed thing up,and went a nice hill nice and slow on a little side street.i waited in 2nd until i saw 180-185 and hopped out with my point and shoot gun and i finally felt the external cooler lines got warm,and all readings matched the gauge.this is a very nice little mod right here.
i think if a guy put the t-stat before the radiators section of the trans cooler,you'd likely see 180 all the time.im glad i tried this way first,cus im happier with 160-170ish when empty.

 

I usually ran about 170 when empty.

 

manual transmission, FTMFW! (unless its a T19, cause it SUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCKKSSS....)

somethin im sure helps my mileage, at least a little, is runnin a pure synthetic, lucas and royal purple 50/50 mix of gear oil in the rear end. also threw a magnet in there, very firmly attached to the cover to catch the little shavins and bits from the break in of the ring and pinion.

 

I've been meaning to switch to synthetic gear oil, but never got around to it yet.

 

well i thought better of things and moved that t-stat control away from that plastic.
though it fit nice up in there,i foresaw a couple potential issues;
a.she gets a little warm and could melt the plastic over time.
b.if she leaked and oil run down in my e-fan,it could be a potential fire hazard.

so i strapped it down to my remote filter with a HD muffler clamp.it's still out of site for the most part with the grill on.so this is much better.
(its wet now cus i had to run one longer line and made a mess. )

 

so there was a con to this mod after all.
i noticed a large increase to under hood temps,because of the lack of airflow under the truck,the air doesn't get pulled away from the engine bay.
i was researching something last night,and i happen to run across where someone mentioned they installed their stock ducting after running a modified air intake and said it really helped.
i tossed mine on,and went for a drive,and sure enough.it's pretty much like it used to be under there again.

 

Huh, never would have thought the stock air intake would be needed to keep the engine bay cooler....