Anyone have a setup like this and if so does it increase ECT/EOT at highway speeds in summer months?

 

Truck Camper Spare Tire Testaments

Many stories from the link above with front mounted spare tires.
Real handy when the truck camper makes it harder to retrieve the under bed spare. Some like having two spares when extremely rocky areas are visited or deep in the boondocks.

 

I was driving up the million dollar hiway going to Silverton Co one time, didn't have a transmission temperature gage, blew the output shaft seal got towed, because not going fast enough or getting enough air to the radiator and transmission cooler.. moral of the story, you can do it but not without a little concern..
ymmv

 

Waaaaaay back in the mid-late 1970s, my Old Man got the bug to wander. He had picked up a '69 F250 'Custom Cab' (base model) with a 360/auto. Dad scrounged up a 11-1/2' slide-in camper from the bulletin board at work ... That camper was so heavy, and hung off the back of the 8' bed so much that it took weight off the front wheels. Sooo he mounted the spare heavy 16" split rim spare out in front of the grill. Reweighed, and still not enough weight on the front. Next he had a 4" channel-iron bracket fabricated that would drop down on one end to accept his '66 Honda S-90 motorcycle, then the 'ramp' raised and pinned in place. All of this in front of the spare tire - so figure almost 18" in front of the front bumper.... With the 175# motorcycle that far forward, it brought the truck back to proper balance...
In Feb of 1977 he and mom took that rig from Cleveland OH to Mexico City, then followed the coast of the Gulf of Mexico to New Orleans, then on around to the Florida Keys, then up the Atlantic coast as far as Washington DC before heading back home. 11k miles in five weeks. The truck and rig did just fine... Never a problem with overheating, even at elevations around Mexico City -- but this was also not in Summer... and this old truck did not have A/C so no condenser blocking airflow...

 

The fan should make up for most of it, just like it would if you were tailgating a box truck in the same conditions. If it doesn't, something bigger is going on.