Chasing a dream

I left Rugged Mountain Ranch today. What an incredible place. The most intense, insane and technical wheeling I’ve done. Green Acres and RMR did not disappoint. Both were everything I dreamed of them being. Just amazing. I really enjoyed SMORR, but RMR takes the cake for wheeling. Only downside is that RMR has no bathhouse (not a big deal to me, just noting it) no cell service, and it’s literally in the middle of nowhere. It was miles and miles, and more miles of dirt road, at 10-15mph. It took me an hour to get back to blacktop today.

I was going so slow the converter didn’t lock often. Understandably so, my trans heated up to just a little over 200° for a short time. This is of no concern and normal, however I could watch it affect my coolant temps. So even though in normal conditions my trans stays around 165° I am going to give it its own cooler with a fan as mentioned. This will take that load off the radiator and make a huge difference.

I’m currently just parked behind a Cracker Barrel in Shawnee, OK. Pushing on to TX in the morning where I’ll crash at a cattle ranch for the day using Harvest Host. Then onto Santa Fe, NM for a few days, then Black Canyon City, AZ to do some wheeling with Wrecked Gear.

I’m so happy with how the buggy performs. It really did great this past week. 43” SXs are amazing. I’d be hard pressed to go with a different tire.
 
Sitting here enjoying this beautiful view, with some cows around. This is so incredibly awesome. I never thought I would be doing this.
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orange150 said:
Man I bet thats an amazing night sky out there.
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Amazing. I just came in from laying on top of my buggy for the last hour looking at the stars. I saw one shooting star and several satellites. It was so peaceful and quiet I almost fell asleep lol
 
Really struggled coming into NM. I’m pretty sure I have dexcool sludge all in the system. I had to run the heat and windows down most of the way, until I turned to drive north and got out of the head wind.

My trans temp got up to 175-180. Again normal, but taxing an already struggling cooling system.

If I want to get the Trucool 40k and remove it from the radiator altogether, I’m assuming I should get the one with the thermal bypass that will allow it to go right back to the trans until warm correct?

Ordering a new radiator, cap, flush kit and trans cooler to deliver to my buddy’s place in AZ. I just gotta make it a little further and I should be good.

I feel really confident once all this is done I’ll be in much better shape.
 
Don't remove the heat exchanger from the system, the trans cooler itself isn't enough to keep it cool.

The tru cool 40k doesn't have big enough inlet/outlet for the allison. Think it's 3/8 vs 5/8

Flush multiple times, get the sludge out, get everything working right then start modifying parts.

Need to head over to duramaxdiesels.com and do some reading regarding:
fuel temps and aftermarket coolers with fans
L5P oil cooler swap (think @Croatan_Kid has done this before)
Auxiliary oil coolers
"Mike L trans cooler"

Good luck
 
I have 2 tru cool 40ks on vehicles. 1 on a 5.3/4l60 and one on a 6.0/4l80. Both are in series with the radiator cooler, don't have the thermal bypass, and have trans temp gauges. Both come up to temp even in pretty cold weather. Consensus seems to be unless you're in the frozen north you don't really need the thermal bypass version.

I also have a Derale remote mount cooler with fans on the jeep that is in series with the radiator and no bypass.
 
Get your bed swapped over to this:
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Or just consolidate everything down to simplify:
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Expedition OffRoad Adventure Truck - cars & trucks - by owner -...

Ready to Roll! **Custom Built Ram 5500 Overland Truck - with full off grid camper setup** More upgrades since the last posting. Happy to answer any questions not listed below. $69,877 Walkthrough...
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If the external cooler works well enough, it'll actually draw some heat out of the cooling system. Definitely gotta make sure it's got big enough inlet/outlet. Running through the heat exchanger in the radiator helps it warm up quicker as well. I'm not sure how the medium duty TCM programming is setup, but pickups (in a stock tune file) won't lock the converter until trans temps reach 100 degrees.

I'd see what the coolant flush reveals. I've got a feeling it's going to be radiator time sooner than later anyway and you're working in the right direction. I always try to do one thing at a time to validate results.

We can definitely nerd out and do a 2020 L5P oil cooler AND a sweet -12 sandwich adapter with an external oil cooler along with everything else, if need be. The most expensive part of that is the cooler. It needs to be able to support quite a bit of oil flow. IIRC, the oiling system will flow something around 20 gal/min at 2000 rpm.

There's also the option of an auxiliary radiator to add more cooling system capacity. You may have mentioned that in a previous post...I can't remember and didn't scroll back to look :D

Carry on. Interested to see how everything goes.
 
If you think you have coolant sludge look into restore and restore+ - they sound similar but towlly different products. Ideally used both with a flush between.

If memory serves its cc2638 and cc2610
 
I will wait on the trans cooler then. I'll see how it does from Arizona to Utah and then decide if I need the cooler. I ordered an all aluminum 3 row radiator that had good reviews by a few Kodiak owners. After reading about DexCool jelly and stuff it makes sense why mine varies greatly and leaks intermittently. I'm going to flush the system with water several times, drive it around and flush again. I'll find a place to flush it again in Utah before leaving. I'll keep those chemicals in mind.

The truck feels a little sluggish here until I make a little boost, even without the camper behind it today. I also noticed when my air compressor kicks on it seems to run longer, yet I have no leaks. Best I can figure is it's the higher elevation here with thinner air?
 
77GreenMachine said:
I will wait on the trans cooler then. I'll see how it does from Arizona to Utah and then decide if I need the cooler. I ordered an all aluminum 3 row radiator that had good reviews by a few Kodiak owners. After reading about DexCool jelly and stuff it makes sense why mine varies greatly and leaks intermittently. I'm going to flush the system with water several times, drive it around and flush again. I'll find a place to flush it again in Utah before leaving. I'll keep those chemicals in mind.

The truck feels a little sluggish here until I make a little boost, even without the camper behind it today. I also noticed when my air compressor kicks on it seems to run longer, yet I have no leaks. Best I can figure is it's the higher elevation here with thinner air?
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Wait - isn’t the stock radiator a copper unit?

Why would you take a vehicle that’s having cooling problems and replace a copper radiator with an aluminum one ?

This isn’t a race car and you aren’t concerns with shaving pounds. Going to an inferior conductor is the last thing I’d want to do.
 
Ron said:
Wait - isn’t the stock radiator a copper unit?

Why would you take a vehicle that’s having cooling problems and replace a copper radiator with an aluminum one ?

This isn’t a race car and you aren’t concerns with shaving pounds. Going to an inferior conductor is the last thing I’d want to do.
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Get that logical nonsense outta here!
 
Elevation definitely makes a big difference! You can read barometric pressure on the Edge monitor. I don't notice any power loss running up to Canton or Asheville, but were talking what...2000-ish feet above sea level, maybe?

4000+ will definitely make them wheeze some!
 
Croatan_Kid said:
Elevation definitely makes a big difference! You can read barometric pressure on the Edge monitor. I don't notice any power loss running up to Canton or Asheville, but were talking what...2000-ish feet above sea level, maybe?

4000+ will definitely make them wheeze some!
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Im currently a little over 7,000 feet here so that makes sense.

Ron said:
Wait - isn’t the stock radiator a copper unit?

Why would you take a vehicle that’s having cooling problems and replace a copper radiator with an aluminum one ?

This isn’t a race car and you aren’t concerns with shaving pounds. Going to an inferior conductor is the last thing I’d want to do.
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My understanding was it is plastic tanks crimped to aluminum core. I was more concerned with getting away from the plastic tanks and thought aluminum would dissipate more heat as an added bonus.
 
Yep. Pretty sure it's aluminum and plastic tanks.
 
77GreenMachine said:
Im currently a little over 7,000 feet here so that makes sense.



My understanding was it is plastic tanks crimped to aluminum core. I was more concerned with getting away from the plastic tanks and thought aluminum would dissipate more heat as an added bonus.
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Ah. If stock is plastic/aluminum then no loss there. I thought all those trucks used a proper radiator.
 
Ron said:
Ah. If stock is plastic/aluminum then no loss there. I thought all those trucks used a proper radiator.
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I have not seen a copper brass radiator in years. Every factory radiator I've seen is aluminum with plastic tanks. I'm pretty sure our Freightliners have all aluminum. I could be wrong.
 
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Ron said:
Wait - isn’t the stock radiator a copper unit?

Why would you take a vehicle that’s having cooling problems and replace a copper radiator with an aluminum one ?

This isn’t a race car and you aren’t concerns with shaving pounds. Going to an inferior conductor is the last thing I’d want to do.
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He’s not driving a 1956 tractor….

Modern stuff is made to throw away and is plastic. :lol:
 
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