ok guys i know that it is really cold -20 but my thermostat never even opens i have the rad blocked off all the way there is no leaks in the system because it builds pressure the temp gauge stays at 160 and it never goes over that unless i am completely beating on it. is there something wrong i am getting a 192 thermostat tomoorrow but i dont know if it will help.

 

Is this in the Chevy/Cummins ??

 

id say dont worrie its just the way she goes my cummins runs like that right now in this wheather

 

Do you have a fan? If so, take it off.

I have mine removed and the rad totaly blocked with card board. Still doesn't get very warm when it's this cold.

I pulled a 5K gooseneck with 9K on it the other day and didn't have an issue.

 

Mine does the same thing, and its about 0-5 Celsius here. When it got colder the situation was worse.



I was gonna stick the cardboard in, but it warmed up around here.

Cardboard and fan removal huh? Good to know... Offset some of the winter diesel fuel economy thing...

 

This is the first year I have pulled the fan.

Driving down the road it warms up, but stop and let it idle and it cools right back off.

The heater is actually respectable now going down the road.

It is -19*F here right now, and that's not the windchill.

 

I usually start runnin fanless as soon as it hits freezing...I always keep it behind the seat, just in case I need to go up a mountain pass with a load..which is once a week or so sometimes...When it gets really cold, with my rad blocked fully, she gets up to 180 in about 10 minutes of driving..fold the cardboard in half, stuff it back in, and carry on (with heat.)..requires a bit of liftin the hood now and then, but I always got lots of heat..

 

-19* sounds absolutely awful. It's about -2* here, and I can't stand it, I can only imagine -19*.

 

Not knowing any better, when I put the Cummins in my Ford (with the monster Ford diesel radiator that is about four-times the capacity of the Dodge one), I just picked up a plain old $7 STANT 180* thermostat at the local Advance and I have plenty of heat, brand-new radiator and brand-new heater-core.

Let it go five miles and I can have you requesting that I turn it down.

The wife's truck, all stock Dodge/Cummins, with an un-known thermostat---as in it was in there when we bought the truck, also heats right up and has plenty of heat.

 

Almost every Dodge truck I have owned needed a new heater core at some point. And Napa cores were actually bigger than the OEM, better heat in the end, mostly because the old core was plugged or obstructed with crap or silver seal etc. and because the Napa core is bigger better. Changing the core sucks, but having no heater sucks more...

Ahh Ford heat, I love it... I have been driving my old 86' F150 4x4 along now for over 10 years, love it in the winter, store it in summer. 1/2 tons are useless for towing trailers IMO...

 

New heater core, remove fan, block radiator. If it heats up too much, try a smaller piece of cardboard or remove the radiator obstruction completely.

 

Same here, mine did not go past 140f and it gets very cold inside the cab driving on the highway for hours. A new 180f t-stat solved the problem for Me. I do block the radiator with cardboard to get it to heat up faster.

 

Nature of the beast in the cold weather. Unless you are putting a load on the engine it won't build any real heat. As stated above, pull the fan and block off the radiator. If I do that, I can get up to 180* even at -50*F. On a side not though, with the heater fan on turbo(ala Jim Lane's Heater on relay trick) the cab temps can drop quite a bit due to the insane amount of cold air being drawn accross the heater core. I use this fact to control engine temps when I get caught in traffice without a fan on warmer days before I remember to put the fan back on.

 

It was -32 this morning when I went out to start her up this morning. I smoked out the nieghboring houses and the highway, but she was running. On my way to work I had cold feet, it never got real warm in the cab and I have the front blocked off, still trying to figure out how to put a set of electric fans on it so I can get rid of the big *** fan keeping the rad. cold!
DS79

 

It sounds to me like you guys need to poke a pipe through the roof and put a wood-stove in the cab.


Better yet, install one of those out-door wood-furnaces in the bed and route the heated water(coolant) through the heater-core and engine.

Thus, one could ALWAYS have a warm, road-ready engine, and plenty of heat.

Plus the cool factor of being the only vehicle in the parking-lot with smoke coming out the chimney.