overheating fears

[Trucker Cap]

was out scrapping tonite. a lot of stop and go. i was at it for about an hour, stopping at places and leaving the truck running. i walked past the truck and heard the coolant bubbling in the overflow, ran to eyeball the gauge, and it was jacked all the way up on hot! my gauges are pretty dark so sometimes its hard to keep an eye on them. needless to say, i shut the truck off for about ten minutes, and since i was around the corner from my house, i drove there and parked it. i have no idea if and how long it had been like that, running hot, and forgot to look for smoke outside of the tail pipe. seems o run just the same on the way home. i guess my question is how well do these idi's handle being overheated?

 

[franklin2]

I overheated mine several times before I figured out the fan wasn't working right, and it's still running good. I could smell the oil burning off the engine one of those times, but it never missed a beat. All I ever had to do is just pull over and let it idle, and it would cool right down. So I don't know why yours is overheating at idle unless there is something wrong with the thermostat.

 

[chris142]

Sounds like your fan clutch is not locking up and making the fan pull air when it gets hot.

 

[Trucker Cap]

ill look at it in the morning and let you know

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[chris142]

When its sitting still the only cooling.is from the fan clutch. If theres any dirt and oil stuck to the spring on the front of the clutch its definatly bad. But they can also go bad and not leak.

 

[Trucker Cap]

if it is bad, cant i just weld it so it turns full time?

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[Trucker Cap]

or is that ******* the starter? i live in florida. its never cold where i am. im going to gut the middle of my thermastat in the morning just in case.

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[chris142]

Gutting the thermostat wont do anything for a low speed overheat. Gutting it may make it run hotter as theres nothing to restrict flow through the bypass. If its ok at speed but gets hot at slow speed the rad and stat are ok.Your problem is lack of air through the radiator core at slow or stopped speeds. I assume you have checked the coolant level? You cant weld the clutch but you can drill through it and bolt it solid

 

[79jasper]

Fan won't affect the starter.
At a cold start, the fan is basically locked solid.
No stat/gutting will make it run too cold. Enough to affect your mileage.

Overheated is just a relative term.
Without a real gauge, you have no idea how hot it was.
Coolant bubbling can be from low coolant.

How cold was it out?
And have you tested your coolant?(not for sca/dca's)


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[Diesile]

The center shaft on the fan clutch can also be reclocked to lock the fan on all the time (assuming the clutch still has it's fluid) while you
try to dice out the problem(s) of your overheat.

 

[OLDBULL8]

It could be you just have a bad radiator cap, should be a 13# cap. If the overtemp lite didn't come on, then it didn't overheat. Check your t'stat for the correct one, must/should be an IH or Motorcraft as shown below. Fill the radiator to within 1" of the top, fill the overflow reservoir to the marked level, keep the overflow tube at the bottom so it don't suck air into the rad when cooling off.
I would also check the water pump for leak out the drain hole on the bottom of it.

 

[ironworker40]

If you make the fan solid I would think you will be eating belts and fuel like mad. You are better off going with electric fans. It will be way cheaper in the long run. Search here for it there is lots of good info on how to do this with junkyard fans.

 

[Trucker Cap]

i woke up this morning and the fan turns freely by hand. bad clutch on fan. new fan clutch is $135 omg haha

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[Trucker Cap]

im not sure that an electric fan will have the power of the stock

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[franklin2]

If you make the fan solid I would think you will be eating belts and fuel like mad. You are better off going with electric fans. It will be way cheaper in the long run. Search here for it there is lots of good info on how to do this with junkyard fans.

I locked mine solid using small pieces of angle iron. Doesn't eat belts, I am sure it hurts mileage a little bit but you can't even hear the fan making noise unless you get to 2000 rpm. It sounds just like a big rig/dump truck/straight truck. You always hear the fan noise when they rev them up to change gears.