One of my friends has a 2004 Dodge Cummins.
He likes his truck, power and looks, and has put lots good looking goodies to it!

just he always complains about the truck water temp overheating! he tows, in the mountains. Note, we are at 5000 feet elevation.Any ideas, solution?? he checked the termostate, its a 50,000 miles radiatior, just the water temp gauge goes almost over to the red line!

he compares it with his brothers 99 PSD, which supposely does NOT have that problem!!

 

maybe the water pump?? is the radiator real hot when the truck is or is just the motor getting hot?

 

Sorry, didnt ask him about that! All he told me is the temp gauge seems to be getting over too far! close to red, then he ahs to slow down, or stop!

do the 3rd gens have waterpump probems?

BTW. The motor comes from a 04 rolled over truck, which was installed into a mexican gas truck. but still the motor is low mileage!

Anything else i should ask him?
or what could it be? whats the price of a new waterpump?

 

i think they are like 60 dollars for a water pump

 

How much is he towing? When I tow roughly ~8000 lbs, I have to drive pretty slow up in the mountains. Depending on how steep the grade is, sometimes I use 4th or 5th gear. If you have been on I-5 in Southern California, (where you come from the valley to Tejon Pass) I usually have to dip into the 30-40mph mark. He may be going to fast or hammering on the truck.

 

When he installed the motor did he also put in the right radiator?
How about the fan shroud?
When he filled the radiator did he loosen the jiggle pin to get the air out of the head?

When dealing with a motor swap, there can be too many variables when dealing with a problem of this nature....

 

My 04 gets kinda hot to when going over mountains and I'm only puling a 18' boat mab2y 3 or 4k. It gets up to 220 but thats on level 2 on the edge running 70.

 

Tell him to turn the A/C on. This will make the cooling fan clutch engage and the temps should drop very quickly. That fan is awesome!!!!
Has he looked to make sure there isn't a bunch of crap clogging the radiator up? There have been a few guys here with that issue. You do have to hose the intercooler/radiator area off every so often.....

 

Jiggle pin?

you mean the google key?

 

The radiator in a gas motor truck is smaller than the Cummins in the 94. The radiator is wider. Both have the smame length side to side. But it is diffferent. My 94 never had a problem overheating with the plow on. I moved a plow with my new truck about 100 miles in the hills of worecester and I had to keep backing off it becuase of it getting hot. Also if you have the fog lights installed on the 94 you might want to remove them. Dodge did not allow the fog lights because of air flow problems.

 

My bet is on something wrong in the installation-either the wrong radiator, something blocking it, or air in the cooling system. Too coincidental that this is an engine swapped into a gas truck.

 

*sigh* At least I thought it was called the jiggle pin. On the motors equipped with the thermostat pointing out to the side ('93) there was an allen head bung on or close to the thermostat housing. You needed to remove this in order to get all the air out of the head.

I looked on my '04 and found the thermostat is flat (pointing up) so the air as a default would work itself out of the head naturally

My apologies for the erronous information.

If the top hose is pointing down to the radiator obviously the coolant system won't fill all the way and the air may not make it to the radiator....

 

Man - I'm sorry: I just noticed where ya are, yeah - jiggle pins north of the border, google keys down here... I'd tell ya what they're called south of the border, but I don't want to get banned from the site!

Also, we call an allen head bung - an allen head bung.

 

to your point, the fan should be coming on full if he is over heating.

He could have a bad fan clutch. Can he hear the fan spooling up/roaring. Also look at the belt. Make sure it aint slippin and is running on the w/p pulley real nice. You did say he checked the Tstat right? How did he check it?

The fan is commaned on at 215 and if you go over 225 it will be on full. He should never get close to that if he has full coolant level and system has been properly purged.

 

Ya know i live south of the border! you might have to tell me how its called... cuz i still dont know what jiggle pin is!
any one can explain how it works? and what you have to do to let air out?


he has a radiator thats meant to be for the 04 cummins, and he said its not the thermostat, but dont know how he checked it, maybe replaced it?!

what about air in the cooling system? never heard of such thing... how to get it out?

and thanks to all the other replies. We will see what we can do!