How to keep engine much cooler
 

I'm not happy with my cooling system. Just drove from California to Phoenix and it hits the third hot line over long hard climbs, and requires OD off, above 2700 rpm, and below 60 mph, otherwise the temp hits the roof. Engine has 172k miles, vehicle s 12000 lbs. Tranny temp is good. EGT is good. Would like to go over those mountains faster :-)

Radiator is new. Stuff in front of radiator: intercooler, then ac condenser, then aux transmission cooler and steering cooler with fan.

Question 1. What devices can I add to help my cooling system?

Question 2. What service procedures can be done to eliminate the cooling symptoms. In other words, what are the possible causes of overheating on long hard climbs.

How far do you have the injection event timing advanced? Substantial advance will drive up the heat available to be converted to work in the cylinders, thus driving up the engine coolant temp.

Do you have a shroud? That single item alone can make all the difference in the world.

But you could also have a failing clutch assembly on your fan. If it's not locking up properly when the heat begins to rise, and therefore start drawing more air, then it will slowly begin to build up heat.

Also what kind of fan..stock 1st gen unit? I would recommend the 2nd gen fan and clutch fan assembly. I got both mine off e-bay and couldn't be happier.

My dad had a 440 powered, similar era motorhome and had a bear of a time with engine temps.
Could it be related to the chassis design?? That engine was surrounded in ky dads rig!

Water injection, water sprayed in front of radiator, add an oil cooler to the trans. Assuming you have the things above working. Mike

I swapped the engine at 150k miles. Don't know if timing was advanced. The IP seemed in original position. I had a hell of a time re moving the IP from the case when I recently resealed it.

Is there a timing light that I can use to check the timing? Or do I have to use a dial ind at the rear of the pump? I'd rather leave that IP alone for now :-)

Edit: i have an m and h spacer waiting to be installed. Im afraid it will just worsen the engine temps.

I have the original fan shroud in there. I think I dd a good job sealing the edges where they meet the intercooler.

As far as the clutch is concerned I hear the fan roar when the engine temps start climbing. So I think the clutch is engaging. It is the original 1st gen fan

Is the 2nd gen fan more efficient? Moves more air?

Could be. It's a doghouse design :-) where the top of the engine is enclosed. However, there's a lot of space on the sides for air to escape. And the chassis is lifted so it allows a lot of air circulation. The front grille allows massive air into the coolers.

Do you mean water injection into the intake / intercooler? Would like to know more!

Is there such a thing as auxillary engine cooler - i have room in front. My aux trans cooler and fan is in the middle, I could move it to the side to make room for another fluid cooler with fan for engine cooling.

In case it's a factor, the motorhome has a water heater / exchanger plumbed into the coolant lines. I would think that would help, not worsen the situation.

One more thing, egt is good, in the low 1000s, as long as the engine runs above 2700rpm OD off. Egt shoots up to 1300 when on OD, and engine temps would get pegged to max, if I let it.

The biggest thing in my experience is the auto trans. I just pulled a 1500 chevy on a 2500lb trailer 300 miles without a cooling fan in my manual trans truck. It was around 30F so that probably helped a bit but temps didn't even creep up on long grades. My 2wd auto truck doing the same type pull(weight an rout) with a functional fan would start getting hot trying keep the same speeds up those grades. An upgraded torque converter would probably help a bit and a huge trans cooler would help take some of the stress off the engine cooling system.

My experience with the symptoms that you describe is not enough radiator capacity. This could be by design, 1 or 2 core, or loss of capacity because it is partially clogged up. I have a mc that would run at perfect temps around town, but as soon as I went on a long trip, the temp would slowly rise to overheating. After throwing some parts at it, I replaced the radiator and all problems stopped. The posters above mentioned the shroud, but how is the other side? Can the rad freely suck in air? We had problems with rear mount fire engines because the radiator faced the rear and got no forced air input, good luck...Mark

Fan clutch working?

is rsm rancho santa margarita?

Yes.

It is possible my torque converter is on its way out. What are the other symptoms of a worn out torque converter?

So here are the new ideas I got from this thread:

1. Timing
2. Water injection
3. Aux engine oil cooler
4. New torque converter

Any other ideas?

Do you have a transmission temperature gauge? how hot is the fluid getting when pulling hills?

if you have the factory F2F oil cooler your torque converter could easly superheat your coolant to over 300*

Did you keep the 1/2" cooler lines when you installed your transmission?

No exhaust restriction?

Since I installed a big aux plate and fin trans cooler and fan, 1/2 " lines, my trans temps on hard climbs have been staying around 210, measured next to the factory temp sensor. I also have the Derale oversized pan. The temps used to go around 260 hot before the cooler upgrades.

Still have the stock F2F exchanger. Should I bypass it?

I'm wondering if my temp gauge is accurate, what the 4 "normal" ticks at, and the overheat tick. Wanna find out but I hate to stop to measure when I'm climbing a grade :-) maybe it's time to get a digital engine temp gauge.

I'm leaning towards an engine oil cooler install, to start to mitigate the situation.

What do you all think? What are the drawbacks?

After rereading and seeing a couple newer things would have to think you have either an airflow issue, radiator issue, or cooling system is just plain undersized for that application. I would be leaning towards airflow, when you drop out of OD the engine(and fan) speed come up pulling far more air through the cooler stack. You mentioned the air flow path into the radiator area and it sounds pretty open hows flow on the way out? Do you have any pictures of the cooling system set up?

EDIT: I noticed you have the 47RH not a 46RH so as long as the lock up is working that should really help with how much heat the trans makes over the 46RH and its lack of lockup. Also what radiator are you running?

A too small of a radiator...blocked air entry to rad. has it always run hot since the conversion or is this new?..Mark

I see in one of your posts you have the engine cooling plumbed into a hot water tank or heating system. Is there an auxullary pump to handle the extra coolant flow.
In marine applications which are set up with the additional cooling line the original engine cooling pump does not have the capability on its own to circulate through the entire system.
In such cases an inline pump is added to give extra flow to the entire system.
Do you have shutoffs and bypasses on the in and out lines to the additional heaters etc, if so shut them off and use the bypass and check the temperture under normal load on the engine water pump.
If the hot wwater tank or any other accesories are above the level of the header tank that will also give you problems again due to the capacity of the engine cooling pump.
Del

i'm running the oem radiator for a 93 ctd. New from rockauto.

I thought the oem radiator was sufficient for a 12k# rig. At this late stage, it's gonna be difficult to retrofit a bigger or odd sized radiator.

It always ran on the hot side after the conversion when doing a long hard
climb.

The only stuff blocking the radiator are the intercooler, ac condenser, and aux trans cooler with fan., the grille is pretty wide open.

If the rad is undersized, i wanna look for a way to compensate or supplement it. I think airflow might be the problem - the doghouse design - but I can't do much about it, other than use external devices to aid the airflow and/or lower the temps.

How about installing down-facing exhaust fans underneath both rear corners of the doghouse? The fans would blow trapped hot air down to the sides of the trans bell housing.

does the new radiator look thick like what the diesel has? I remember reading something about auto parts stores handing out the wrong one saying it was a diesel application. I think those were quite thin though.

Just a dumb thought, is the aux trans cooler fan spinning the correct direction? I've seen overheating problems from someone putting the engine fan on the wrong way.

I agree with your thought of putting in an actual temperature gauge to see what your temps really are, might just be normal for the given size and aerodynamics. I'd put that in before adding anything else for fans or coolers.

Here's a photo of whats under the dog house. The front third is boxed 14 inches high; the rear 2/3 is boxed 6 inches high.

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/attac...nsidebay3a.jpg

Coolers behind the grille. Note the white partition above the coolers that separates the hot air in the doghouse from the incoming air.

Http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/membe...18610-rv1a.jpg

Yes, I'm sure the rad is for diesel, same old and new. Both crossflow, same number of cores, same dimensions. My old rad probably was ok since the new one did not improve the temps.

The fan blows into the cooler. I don't see why a front mounted fan would blow otherwise. Maybe it's blowing all the trans heat into the radiator :-) it'll probably help if i relocate the tranny cooler somewhere.

Do you have enough room in front of the rad to install an electric fan or 2? I had a girlfriend that had a 79 Corvette that ran hot from new, real hot, like 240 F.. I found that the problem was that the rad was sitting at a 45 degree angle and was sucking air around the rad. I installed an electric fan and it never ran over 200 F. again. Another option for this is to remove the original heavy fan and clutch and install 1 or 2 on the engine side of the rad, good luck...Mark

Radiator should be big enough. Tape (or use an aluminum filled epoxy )a thermocouple to the in and out fittings on the radiator, with a little insulation taped over them, then check the temps under running conditions. I'm willing to bet the outlet side is hotter than it should be. It takes a lot of airflow through the radiator stack to keep things cool.
Theoretically, it should take less radiator to cool a diesel than a gasser.

I would.....
1. Ditch the clutch fan and install electric fans.
2. If not enough, install a frame mounted fan assisted transmission cooler.

Do you mean relocate the front-mounted aux trans cooler to frame-mounted?

The picture of the cooler stack reminded me of some testing I did in Death Valley a few years ago. We were running Ford transit vans up and down the hill out of Stovepipe Wells and the vans would over heat halfway up the hill. We tried putting ice on the top of the radiators, running the heaters (lots of fun when it's 128 degrees) and everything else we could think of and nothing worked until we took the hoods off (the hood was only about 12 inches deep). After that they would run right up the hill at full tilt and not go above the normal operating temp. Those vans had a closed back dog house similar to what your MH has. Something about the areodynamics on those things caused the air to stack up under the van and make it over heat.

As a test perhaps you could do something like we did (I don't know what the options are on your MH) or make a run with the doghouse off and the windows open and see if it changes anything.

You might try removing the partition as well for test purposes. If it fixes it you could relocate the air filter to a cooler location.

It's a different unit, bolts to the frame somewhere near the middle of the truck. You can run them both, but the front one would probably be redundant.

Like brainfade said, I think airflow is probably the key, and close fitting electric fans would probably overcome some of the aerodynamics issues.

Is there any room to install a remote fan cooled radiator in side compartment?

Everything in front of your radiator produces more heat as the load increases, move as much as possible out of the air stream or provide excessive ram air for them, Ford Taurus fans move more air than aftermarket.

Is there an airfoil/ spoiler under the chin to direct air into the radiator, and how about directing the air out of the engine compartment?

Just a few inches can really screw up the aerodynamics of a vehicle.

I think most of those fans can push or pull air just depending on how they are wired up. My brother knows a guy that wasted a lot of time and money on four electric fans and custom shrouds just to find out the first two fans he put on were blowing in opposite directions and circulating the hot air around and around. he would have been fine if they were wired in correctly from the start but never checked to see what way the air was flowing.

If you can relocate that cooler then its going to be better, as you say, the heat that is being pulled out of the trans is going back into the intercooler and radiator.

Jim, the remote aux radiator is a novel idea. What trucks you know that use them? Unfortunately, the side compartments are taken, i need them for storage.

I think I can find room to relocate the trans cooler underbelly. I think this should be the first mod to make. The see if I can do the same with the A/C condenser. Then only the intercooler will be blocking the radiator.

And no, there is no air dam under the grille. It's taken by the 17.5k# winch.

Brainfade, I'll experiment driving it without the partition. I wonder how the intake will react to a warmer air. I can create a tunnel for the air intake later f the experiment proves the partition is keeping the heat.

It sounds like your on the right track now. Also have you been running A/C while it's getting hot?

I have a old ford tractor that does a lot of work chipping wood. It's job is to run a hydraulic chipper, it's a diesel engine. The radiator is a big boy but there are hot days were I have to check the gauge as it will get way to hot and I'll idle her to cool it down. I ended up tossing the thermostat to see how that would help the old beast. She hasn't ran hot ever since.

Maybe something to try? I know you have a tranny and other moving parts so maybe it won't help.