I was on my way to tower trax to go 4 wheeler riding, i was towing a 16 ft tandem axle trailer with my 500 foreman a 420 rancher and a warrior 350 on the trailer and in the back of my truck i had another 350 warrior. The trailer also had some gas cans and ice chests, but nothing near the max capacity of my truck. When i was about 20 minutes away i noticed that my engine temperature was rising well it got to 240 when i turned off the exit to get to the track but after having my foot off the accelerator it dropped back down to 210 ( the whole time i had tow/haul mode on and was in "D") .This was only an hour drive with some hills. After riding all day i figured id be fine, well on the way home it started to do it again so this time i dropped my truck into 3rd and it went down to 220, and only went to 210 when i was exiting to get in the Port Vincent exit. My truck is on some pretty have 34.5x12 nitto trail grapplers but i don't think that this trailer would make the engine temps rise this much. The truck has all trailed something, and has never been on stock tires maybe the first 30 miles of its life. Its towed over its capacity a few times and never has my engine temps risen. What do you think made my engine temps go up? (If i knew how to post pics i show y'all what i was towing.)

 

Did you have the AC wide open?

 

Not wide open but it was on, I aslo forgot to mention that the radiator cap was not very tight. I did tighten it when i got home.

 

You aren't supposed to tow in overdrive EVER. The tranny was overheating and because the tranny cooler is integral in the radiator it is superheating the engine coolant.

Throw in a lift huge tires and crappy stock gears and you are begging to fry a tranny

If you hook up any trailer EVER tow in 3rd unless you want to buy a new transmission.

 

you have a transmission gauge?

 

yeah the digital one on the nnbs it said the temp was 220.

 

Ah.. so your coolant was higher than your transmission..

Try keeping it in 3rd next time and see what happens.


I tow in Overdrive all the time

 

Wow good thing my 256k stock trans in my suburban has never gone out, been towing in overdrive since it was new!

 

If it was constantly shifting then i can see it heating up. But if it stayed in one gear and was heating up, something was slipping.

But thats no excuse for the coolant to heat up. Did you have to keep the throttle down pretty good to keep up the speed? Theres not that many hills down there in LA on 55.

My buddys dad had a tahoe they towed their camper with and it stayed up around 240*. Dealership told him that was normal...

Next time try slowing down some and drop a gear to see what happens. Ive towed a crapton more than my truck was rated for and nothing heated up past normal.

 

You also have a 4L80 in yours so you can tow in OD using some common sense. I also did tow in od with my big block and 4L80 but it was on stock tires 4:10 gears and not laboring.

Deck stacked against that trans. 35 inch tires, towing in hills loaded, and stock gears recipe for disaster.