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6.5 over heating

TRB

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good day all new to this site and the 6.5 family hope u all can help
1994 gmc dully pulling 11k was told to go on SSDiesel site they could help
here is what I have done
new champion radiator, ac condenser, oil cooler, added tranny cooler, electric fan in front of
radiator 3" exshaust, ssdiesel desert cooling system, ssdiesel power setup
runs cool as long as Im not pulling up the mountian I live in tn so all we have is mountians
any help will be greatly appreciated
 

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@TRB welcome to TTS.. nice truck..I can tell you a few things and other guys will chime in and add to it.. upgrade to a high flow water pump and spin on fan. @ak diesel driver and @Will L. Can advise you on the best ones to get.. they gave me the advice a couple years ago and I am really impressed with the results. I used to live in Carthage Tennessee so I know all about pulling hills...I also changed out my stock thermostats for 175 degree opening ones.. not sure if you're truck is single or dual thermostat. Another thing that helps is to take your cooling stack apart and clean them all out good. The lil find get pretty nasty.
Again welcome to TTS we're glad you joined and look forward to seeing more of you on here.
 
@TRB welcome to TTS.. nice truck..I can tell you a few things and other guys will chime in and add to it.. upgrade to a high flow water pump and spin on fan. @ak diesel driver and @Will L. Can advise you on the best ones to get.. they gave me the advice a couple years ago and I am really impressed with the results. I used to live in Carthage Tennessee so I know all about pulling hills...I also changed out my stock thermostats for 175 degree opening ones.. not sure if you're truck is single or dual thermostat. Another thing that helps is to take your cooling stack apart and clean them all out good. The lil find get pretty nasty.
Again welcome to TTS we're glad you joined and look forward to seeing more of you on here.
thanks Stoney
the cooling system I got from ssdiesel is supposed to be the 130 gpm water pump and duromax fan and clutch
and the radiator ac condensor and oil cooler are all new less than a yr old
I don't now much about this
I have 190 degree thermostat
I will try a 175
 
So I would consider doing a few things. A 4" exhaust will help shed a little more heat than a 3". A cooler thermostat will buy you a little more time to build up heat. Consider having Chris from TSP coat your radiator, it's supposed to make it about 30% more efficient. I really like my electroviscous fan clutch, it will turn on via engine temp vs waiting for the radiator to get hot enough, plus you can have an overide switch to turn it on before you get to the hill. It also appears to be 100% lock up vs about 80% on the thermo unit.
 
Welcome to TTS! nice rig you have there. when your engine is fully warmed up or hot, shut it off while the hood is open and having your eye on the fan blades. look to see if the blades stop immediately or they still spin some as the engine stops. also with it off spin the fan by hand and see if there is any resistance or it's basically free wheeling.

with the d-max fan blade you should hear some serious air with the clutch engages. there has been talk about bad clutches when new. is that clutch you got from SS diesel a hayden clutch?

several of us have elected to install an electro-viscous fan clutch that was from a 2010 d-max express van. it's a direct thread on to the water pump and fits the fan. all is required is a hayden fan controller, setting the temp that you want it to turn on at plus having the option to wire it into the AC for an instant on with the ac system too @ak diesel driver iirc came up with this solution and works great!
 
Couple of other things, if you're running a cone air filter in the engine bay you're sucking in already heated air. The later model k47 airbox is a better option than the flat panel or cone filter. S&B make a good filter setup too. Then if you're running the stock turbo it's basically a heat pump above 10 psi. A larger turbo is a good upgrade if you do a lot of towing and it will run cooler to boot.
 
Welcome.
Never again will I or many, many people use ss diesel. Some of the stuff they have is ok. Some of it is a nightmare waiting to happen. Their warranty is a nightmare. Probably got screwed like many of us, but better to rip off the bandaid all at once and let you know the truth where you stand.

We need more details- load a ton of pics how you are set up.
Part number of the waterpump, fan clutch, etc you installed.

If you need better a/c at stoplights and NEVER get hot driving down the road- the electric fan is ok. Otherwise, the electric fan limits the airflow getting through the engine.
We’ve done wind speed tests proving the electric fan hampers the real fan’s ability to draw air.

Show what electric fan controller you have before removing it if you end up removing electric fan.

Show examples of how hot and when.
Do you have an egt gauge and if so where is it tapped? Are you seeing the correlation of egt to ect?
Are you going off just the factory temp gauge?


Above all else:
200 is ok. At 210 watch the temp gauge more than you do the road. At 220 pull over immediately and let it idle back down under 200.
Heat is the #1 killer of this engine. Don’t believe the lie that the military puts out saying 230 and 240 is ok—remember they replace engines all the time at 50,000 miles.
 
Second @Will L. in avoiding SS diesel. I know folks need to make a buck but any "cooling upgrade kit" is simply a duramax fan, the readily available high output water pump, Hayden Severe duty fan clutch, and a few hundred bucks in markup. 6.5 guys are a frugal bunch, you came to the right place to sort through the BS before making future purchases.

What year is the truck? Do you have the single stat or dual stat setup? The single stat cools better because it is a block off style, if you changed to dual stat or have dual stat you need the bypass restrictor fitting

A pyrometer is also a must if you care about keeping cool when pulling grades. Along with a boost gauge. Many put another coolant sensor in the #8 cylinder head spot for reading the hottest part of the engine.

Other things that will help keep cool are the air box as mentioned. And a bigger turbo will do wonders too. If you do lots of towing a charge air cooler (intercooler) is also a must for performance
 
Yeah, what they said... Many of us have gotten taken for a lot of cash by ss diesel and a couple other b.s. places...
A very important thing with these trucks is getting the pmd as far out of the engine bay as possible..under front bumper is a great place for i5..and always have a spare one in the glove box already on a heat sink ready to go because they burn up. If you have a spare it's just unplug the old one and plug in the new one..
Most of us on here are extremely loyal to 6.5 trucks, why? Nobody knows.. but its our thing so there's tons of knowledge on here..
Before you buy parts ASK. Because one of us has been there done that and may be able to save you time and money. And Don't use anything but a/c Delco parts for anything electrical..these rigs don't like imitation parts.. they spit them out.
I'll also mention we have our own REPUTABLE parts suppliers that are allowed to be vendors on here, to name a couple Leroy diesel.. @Burning oil . Check out Leroy diesels web sites all kinds of great 6.5 parts.. @Twisted Steel Performance is another one that we love. @quadstar87 at quadstar tuneing. There's others..and @RockAutoLLC is also a vendor here and they give member discounts...
Any of them stand behind there products.
 
Frugal is tossing a Kennedy Diesel fan clutch on it.

Then spend the money on a better turbo. The big towing turbo: the ATT kit isn't in production anymore as far as I can tell. Many other turbo's out there since it shattered the glass ceiling.

If you are using coolant or loosing it you may have a cracked head or blown head gasket. This can cause overheating as well.

In depth on towing the the awful small GMx turbo GM slapped on the 6.5TD...

 
As @Will L. advised Me.
Drill a hole through Your old fan clutch, run a sheetmetal screw into the hole to lock up the fan clutch solid. Install the fan onto the clutch. Hole it is a 9 blade steel unit.
Install the assembled unit onto the coolant pump and take it for a drive, see if the coolant temp climbs above about 205 degrees. If it does not, hook onto the trailer and try a test run dragging the trailer and see how that goes.
I had the original fan clutch laying round here so I drilled that one.
I test drove the truck on a day it was 104 degrees, temp went to 217.
Installed the locked up unit, went for a drive, temp went to about 200 but I dont remember the exact number.
 
@TRB welcome to TTS.. nice truck..I can tell you a few things and other guys will chime in and add to it.. upgrade to a high flow water pump and spin on fan. @ak diesel driver and @Will L. Can advise you on the best ones to get.. they gave me the advice a couple years ago and I am really impressed with the results. I used to live in Carthage Tennessee so I know all about pulling hills...I also changed out my stock thermostats for 175 degree opening ones.. not sure if you're truck is single or dual thermostat. Another thing that helps is to take your cooling stack apart and clean them all out good. The lil find get pretty nasty.
Again welcome to TTS we're glad you joined and look forward to seeing more of you on here.
Order the AC Delco water pump for the 2000 year 3500 truck and the 2001 Duramax Fan with a spin on fan clutch.
 
As @Will L. advised Me.
Drill a hole through Your old fan clutch, run a sheetmetal screw into the hole to lock up the fan clutch solid. Install the fan onto the clutch. Hole it is a 9 blade steel unit.
Install the assembled unit onto the coolant pump and take it for a drive, see if the coolant temp climbs above about 205 degrees. If it does not, hook onto the trailer and try a test run dragging the trailer and see how that goes.
I had the original fan clutch laying round here so I drilled that one.
I test drove the truck on a day it was 104 degrees, temp went to 217.
Installed the locked up unit, went for a drive, temp went to about 200 but I dont remember the exact number.

Remember you already knew you were replacing it as it was toasted- the screw thing is literally the death nail of a fanclutch turning it “on” permanently and will never have a chance at working when the screw is taken out. When a person is already buying a new fan clutch and wants to know that the fan clutch is definitely their problem- or if it goes bad in the middle of no where and you need a trick to get you home this works. Or maybe you know it is bad and have no money for parts for a week or two this works. But you will spend more money in fuel by forcing it on all the time like that. We had a President back then who wasn’t driving up the price of fuel on purpose to teach us to buy electric.

You don’t wanna recommend this until you know where the person is in diagnosis and so forth. He just bought a new clutch by the sounds of it- and maybe it’s a good one- we don’t know yet
 
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