Hey everybody reading this. This may be a ridiculous question but here it goes anyway. It's kind of long so thanks for your time.

Got my first cummins, my first diesel period about a year ago. I drive it up about 2 miles of a fairly steep twisty road many times a day. The truck doesn't ever stop climbing even with a decent size construction load and I keep it at about 2000 rpm. 1900 to 2100 rpm seems to be a somewhat sweet spot on my daily route, but it sounds and feels like it is working hard. Do these engines roar by nature and what about when I'm towing a tractor behind me when it's working harder than I've seen it work. I imagine it will be even louder then and will it be ok then to slowly lay my foot into it when the steep parts come? I'm afraid I'll run out of power or burn my cummins up. No knocks or anything except a small jerk sometimes while shifting especially once your up a hill and flattened out then shifting. Temp guage and all is fine. I've heard some negative stuff about the auto. trans., and it's my first diesel so I'm not sure. Everything is serviced and the truck runs solid.

Does anyone have any input as to how hard I can drive this truck? I drive like a snail most of the time, but I'd like to know I don't have to worry about pushing it hard when I need power, of course provided great upkeep on everything. I plan on towing a small excavator up that hill (not sure of the grade %) for 12 miles a few times. Never towed with this truck before.
Everyday, I pass guys towing boats, tractors, etc... up the grade with all makes of turbo diesel trucks and they sound like they're working hard too but I've never driven any diesel other than a 1990 f250 manual and have never seen, heard and compared my truck with the other diesels side by side up that hill so I have nothing to compare to if you know what I mean. In my cab with the combo of the engine vibration, turbo spool noise, and the auto downshifting I wonder if these are just the normal sounds of a truck like this doing its job. Or is mine making more noise or does it sound the same as theirs. I just can't tell.

It's a 4 speed auto, stock, and I guess 235 horses and 460 ft lbs, 160,000 miles
Quad cab long bed, nickname-the bus, love the truck so far.

 

The roar is probably the fan. They can move alot of air which means alot of sound. As long as your truck is stock, I would add two things.

A fuel pressure gauge and a trans temp gauge, The two weak spots on your truck is the lift pump (almost the same as the fuel pump on a gas) and the transmission. If your lift pump fails, your injector pump is strong enough to suck fuel from the tank on it's own but not for long. Without a gauge installed at the right place, you won't know this until your $2000 plus injector pump gives out from doing that. You can get a replacement fuel filter cap that has a fitting in it ready for a fuel gauge sending unit. I recommend an electric gauge so you don't have a fuel line that can split and spray your cab full of fuel. You want a gauge that goes up to about 30 psi max.

I would never recommend letting the dealer replace your lift pump. They will put a pump inside your tank and they aren't known to last either, so guess what you get to do when it dies. Yep, take your tank out and dig the pump out of it.

You may consider going ahead and replacing the factory lift pump . They never seem to die in the parking lot of the lift pump stores. It's on the back of the fuel filter housing. There are kits that allow you to remove and replace it. I got a Glacier pump because I didn't have any crazy add ons and it was more than sufficient. There are FASS and others that have nice spin on filters and water separators which are very nice but can be pricy. I mounted my Glacier on the frame as close to the tank as possible and I got a big line kit which is a bigger fuel line that flows easier and better. I could kinda feel the lift pump run if I bump the key and not start it. Kinda like another insurance to know it was still good.

The trans temp gauge can be a little more tricky to install. A simple install will be to punch a hole in the trans pan and mount a sensor in it. You need to be careful where you punch it so you have clearance inside for the sensor and you don't want it to leak. On my 99 I welded a small pipe bung into my pan. You can also get replacement trans pans with threaded holes and even some that allow you to add more fluid. Not a bad idea but again can be pricey. The trans pan mount will require you to remember that this is the oil that has already been thru the cooler so your actual trans temp will be more than what is displayed.

The best install for a trans temp gauge is in the output line of the trans, before it goes to the cooler. You can order the fitting to do this.

Another tip is to make sure you ground the sending units very well. The trans line sometimes doesn't make for a good ground.

You can get programmers that can also include digital readout of fuel pressure and trans temp. Your truck ecm already keeps track of these, but just doesn't share its info with you. With that, you can add some programming like timing that will give you more power, but again doing that you would see your exhaust gas temps go up and you would want to monitor that with a pyrometer. That's more work drilling and tapping for a sensor in the exhaust manifold.

All of these things are things you can do yourself. You can get all kids of gauge mounts. I've got a buddy that a couple of years ago would have never owned a truck, and after spending some truck time with me he got one. It was small and had toy in the name so I always kidded him about that. he has finally moved up to diesel and is learning and doing things he never thought he could do and he now has a huge rv that he pulls all over the place and will never go back.

I hate to admit it but I never did get my gauges installed in my 04. I've got a 12 now so this reminds me that I need to get a focus on gauges and consider a lift pump replacement before I'm walking.

 

Oh, Congrats on the truck. It can easily become an un-curable fever. Look up some diesel truck events close to you. If you got a son or two take them. You'll love it, Me and my son just went to one. We saw guys doing everything from tearing up the trucks they depended on to get them home to trucks with early 12 valves making thousands of HP that we completely insane. There was a Gen 3 truck that run a 6 second quarter mile and several nearly 10,000 hp dragsters. And the 18 wheeler pulls and drags. That was so cool.

 

Geno's garage is a great place to shop for stuff. They get everything you need to do what I talked about. I like to order all my filter from the, I get the stratapore filters. They also have the block heater cord that is terribly expensive at the dealer but reasonable at Geno's.

And you thought you we long winded.

 

Read your owners manual about towing and run it according to the owners manual regarding your automatic transmission. The biggest problem these trucks have is their owners. Its not a race up the big steep hill. Its getting there and doing it many times day in and day out that is the goal. If you have to have the transmission in 2nd and drive slower with rpms up then do so. its not all about being in high gear with your foot in it all the time. You don't need to worry about the engine. You need to keep the transmission in mind and drive it the way its supposed to be driven in your situation.




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The sweet spot for the 5.9 seems to be right about 2,000 rpms. You don;t really want (or need) to run it much higher than that to keep it going.

Keep the transmission in the lowest gear possible to maintain safe speed. Lower gears will multiply torque.

Diesels are kinda loud by nature. Easily overcome by turning up the stereo a bit.