I live in Colorado so there is significant elevation changes and I've always had a strange issue with my Titan and it's the same mountain that does it. The titan runs well around town, on the interstate, and over most passes. As soon as I start up one mountain I overheat.... Every time.. The first time it happened to me I popped the radiator because I didn't catch it in time. I replaced the radiator, fan clutch, and thermostat and had it tuned. Every time since than I just look for it so I can pull over and let it cool off. It does it consistently, but never anywhere else.. I thought I would post this to see if anyone has any ideas. The air going up the mountain is obviously significantly thinner, and all but this shouldn't be standard I wouldn't think.
Engine overheating... Sometimes..
kamacho970
1 - 20 of 23 Posts
Joined
·
20 Posts
I live in Colorado so there is significant elevation changes and I've always had a strange issue with my Titan and it's the same mountain that does it. The titan runs well around town, on the interstate, and over most passes. As soon as I start up one mountain I overheat.... Every time.. The first time it happened to me I popped the radiator because I didn't catch it in time. I replaced the radiator, fan clutch, and thermostat and had it tuned. Every time since than I just look for it so I can pull over and let it cool off. It does it consistently, but never anywhere else.. I thought I would post this to see if anyone has any ideas. The air going up the mountain is obviously significantly thinner, and all but this shouldn't be standard I wouldn't think.
Joined
·
20 Posts
Is this a common thing for the Titans? I've never had a vehicle that wont make it up this mountain untill this. It is pretty steep and I do go pretty fast up it usually around 55-60mph. When it starts to overheat yeah, I typically just pull over or slow down to a crawl for a few minutes and it goes down. It's wierd how fast it spikes, it's like it's maintaining than the needle just jumps almost like a thermostat sticking but that was replaced.
Joined
·
20 Posts
Thanks,
Yeah I took all this apart and cleaned everything out when I installed the new radiator last year.
Yeah I took all this apart and cleaned everything out when I installed the new radiator last year.
Joined
·
20 Posts
I was thinking about what robkar said about transmission pan. This might be spot on. The transmission cooler is internal to the radiator, this always happens in top gear, the truck has bigger tires than were stock and 20" rims and even with stock it is luggyier once it hits that last gear.. I'm going to take a temp gun with me next time I go up there and shoot the tranny temp on the pan when it overheats and see if I can see anything.
if it ends up being related to the cooler, get an external cooler and add in line with the stock one. maybe take the cooler that is part of hte factory radiator out of the loop too, so the engine temps are no longer effected by the transmission temps
Joined
·
25,884 Posts
Which mountain? LOL! Mine heated up on just about every mountain pass when I was towing my UTV. But it was the transmission that heated up first, not the engine. If I kept the speed to 45 MPH and stayed in 3rd gear the transmission was happy. But if the RPM's stayed high too long the engine temp got up there.
Since you've replaced everything else, it sounds like you may have a pump problem. It could also be that you have air in the system. Purging all the air out is critical.
Since you've replaced everything else, it sounds like you may have a pump problem. It could also be that you have air in the system. Purging all the air out is critical.
Joined
·
1,565 Posts
Good thoughts here, and like HRTKD, I'm a Colorado Titan owner. My '08 KC LWB is used primarily as a tow vehicle for my 22' race trailer and is equipped with a PML extended tranny pan and dual core aluminum radiator. Never had much overheating over the I-70 route or other mountain passes. Which Colorado mountain pass are we talking about?
Joined
·
14,462 Posts
i chased a similar issue with my 2011 years ago. I added a fat transmission cooler and it helped but i dont think i solved the issue. (i also did a new radiator, fan clutch and thermostat)
drop a gear to cool the transmission, well now i'm overheating the coolant lmao.
drop a gear to cool the transmission, well now i'm overheating the coolant lmao.
Joined
·
38,655 Posts
So I have the PML deep transmission pan and that helps but there are times when it still heats up.
I also have the CSF Racing Radiator.
So when I am pulling my boat through the desert at ~ 115 degrees up hill, I tow in 4th and and when needed drop to 3rd. Cools things off and I keep going with the AC running full blast.
I also have the CSF Racing Radiator.
So when I am pulling my boat through the desert at ~ 115 degrees up hill, I tow in 4th and and when needed drop to 3rd. Cools things off and I keep going with the AC running full blast.
Joined
·
209 Posts
I have an '05 and put a real temp gauge on the trans. Trans temp normally runs around 100 degrees above the outside temp. But when pulling ANY grade even with nothing extra on, the temp gauge QUICKLY shy rockets to 230 fast -headed for 250. It's always done this. If you let the trans "downshift" itself, it just keeps making more heat. Tow Mode helps NOTHING. BUT if I drop it down manually from OD to Fourth and even stay in it, the temp quickly drops back to 205 even though I'm still pulling the hill. I bypassed the radiator trans cooler a long time ago so I don't how much, if any, the Trans temp can push the water temp around. But it's still running and shifting great at 315,000 mi so go figure.
Joined
·
1,565 Posts
Interesting findings, Jim. If you bypassed the radiator tranny cooler, does your five-speed have a separate external cooler hooked up to it?
Joined
·
25,884 Posts
Every Titan has a separate transmission cooler. The transmission fluid runs from that cooler to a line that goes through the bottom of the radiator and then back to the transmission. The idea behind running the transmission fluid through the radiator is that it will (hopefully) keep the transmission fluid at a constant minimum temperature. The other Jim bypassed that line through the radiator. A lot of guys are doing that to avoid contaminating the transmission fluid when the radiator fails. The bypass also seems to bring down the transmission fluid temperature.
When I had my secondary transmission cooler installed, the installer botched the job and ran the lines this way:
Transmission => radiator => OEM transmission cooler => aftermarket transmission cooler => transmission
The consequence of this is that on cold days, when running on the highway, the transmission fluid never comes up to temperature. The net result of the routing (from the transmission's perspective) is similar to if the radiator had been bypassed altogether. It may also have caused the radiator/cooling system to work a bit harder since it was dealing with hot transmission fluid.
When I had my secondary transmission cooler installed, the installer botched the job and ran the lines this way:
Transmission => radiator => OEM transmission cooler => aftermarket transmission cooler => transmission
The consequence of this is that on cold days, when running on the highway, the transmission fluid never comes up to temperature. The net result of the routing (from the transmission's perspective) is similar to if the radiator had been bypassed altogether. It may also have caused the radiator/cooling system to work a bit harder since it was dealing with hot transmission fluid.
Joined
·
20 Posts
Just an update, I'm convinced it's the transmission now. I took the same mountain this past weekend, it started heating up and i dropped it into towing gear and knocked it down a gear and the temp immediately went down. Because of the rpms being lower with the shifter in drive after putting larger/heavier tires and rims on it I just think the fan doesn't spin fast enough combined with the engine lugging more because it's at lower rpms producing more heat.
I'm re gearing this hopefully this year with a lvl 10 transmission as well. I'm going to do the pan and cooler when I do that. I'll try to give an update after that on this thread but I'm about 80% sure it's going to run very well up that mountain after that.
I'm re gearing this hopefully this year with a lvl 10 transmission as well. I'm going to do the pan and cooler when I do that. I'll try to give an update after that on this thread but I'm about 80% sure it's going to run very well up that mountain after that.
Joined
·
20 Posts
Western Colorado up the grand Mesa. I got it to do this same thing also this weekend going up glade park. It's odd because I drive it pretty hard up and over Douglas every two weeks without any issues.
Joined
·
20 Posts
The pump has really good flow, so I decided to not go through the hastle of replacing it when I did the other things. As far as the air pockets I've purged it. This was an issue before the radiator replacement and all, the radiator actually failed I think because it was the first time I've noticed it happening and I think it got too hot/too much pressure before I caught it.
Joined
·
25,884 Posts
I'm referring to the pump in the transmission, not the water pump.
1 - 20 of 23 Posts
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
-
?
