Did I overheat it? What happened?

[Noiseydiesel]

Okay, got the '94 crew-cab dually, 4.10 gears, idit.
4 inch open exhaust, no muffler, and everything new or rebuilt. Turbo/IP/Engine/Trans/EVERYTHING.
Idled it around the house for about 5 minutes, headed down the mountain pretty much at idle speed dropping 1200 feet in 1.5 miles, takes about 12 minutes.
Fun windy road with 3 hairpins. County got tired of pulling cars out of the tops of trees and boringly put up some dirt berms.
Got to the bottom of the hill and flat stood on it to get up to about 65 MPH.
The bottom of the hill drops onto a 55 MPH road with a fair amount of traffic at times.
Ran it down the road about 65 MPH towing a 2,000 pound empty trailer.
Got about 10 miles down the road and started losing power. Were down to about 25 MPH rolling into a small town posted at 35 MPH.
Stomp on throttle to force a downshift and nothing happening.
Felt like a vapor lock or running out of fuel, turbo locking up?
No strange noises, just a continuous loss of power.
New mechanical pump and filters.
Like I said, EVERYTHING new.
Motor locking up?
Coolant level good, temp gauge at the 'N' in "Normal"
Pulled over, before it died rolling down the road at about 15 MPH, shut it off, popped the hood and saw nothing, smelled nothing,
"You've got to be kidding me." ran through my brain as I sat there dumbfounded.
About 4 minutes later, turned the key, it fired right off. Seemed to slightly bog the first time I hit the pedal, then had full power. Dropped it in gear, power brake and had good power. Got back on the road, made the hour trip to the far side of town, stopped a few minutes, then went back home with no problems.
The way back got me on a free way and I cranked it up to a steady 75 MPH for awhile.

 

[chillman88]

Is it possible you sucked some air up on the hill? I've had that happen to me before when I should have filled up yesterday.

 

[MtnHaul]

Didn't think about the fuel pickup being an issue here but now that makes a lot of sense.

 

[1992 idi 73]

That sounds like air in fuel system, probably your tanks sucking air. If your on the font tank since it's shaped like a cigar, and going down hill the fuel has a tendency to all run to the front and you loose power(since diesels don't run good on air) or just die all together. This has even happened in my driveway as my strainers are broken and air can easily intrude the system.

 

[SLC97SR5]

I vote air intrusion/lack of fuel.

When I cooked my engine there were all sorts of smells and tons of black smoke as she was grinding to a stop.

 

[Noiseydiesel]

I have smelled a few smoked engines. The nasty part was I ran the flats for about 7 miles before a noticeable power loss.
I have been pulling wrenches a few years and all the scenarios ran through my head. This felt like the engine overheating and the pistons slowly seizing. Then unable to down shift the E4OD at 15 MPH gave me another wonder.
Maybe next time I won't stand on it so hard out of the gate. Then again, 60 odd tickets at 60 odd years of age,
We'll see.