Garnet Kid

Today I was pulling one of my toys over the Coquihalla connector to Merritt .
This road is a high mountain pass with long steep grades. Load is about 6000 lbs. When I got to Merritt I noticed some antifreeze down the right side of my load. I never noticed the truck running hot but then I was pushing it fairly good in locked up OD. I checked the coolant level in the rad and it was down about two quarts. Before leaving to go back I topped up the rad. On the way back I again pushed it on the climb and paid close attention to the temp guage. It ran fine when locked out of OD with the TC locked up.tried it in OD and locked TC the temp climed to just past the normal and it again puked out coolant. I have never noticed if my clutch fan has engaged and have never had this problem before. I suspect it is the clutch fan not working. Is there a method to check it? I did try a search of the forums however couldn't get it to accept the word clutch fan or fan clutch???

apache

Humm, the clutch on my 95 roars when it locks up, you never see any temp gains indicating it should come on either. Id start with a new rad cap, sounds like it might be bad. do you have a coolant recovery bottle? that should be getting the overflow then putting it back in when it cools. Other wise if youe seeing constant pressures above normal in the cooling system then Id say head gasket possibly.

v8440

I doubt it's the fan clutch. If you're moving at normal road speeds, you don't even need a fan. If this were happening at idle or in slow city traffic that would be my first guess. I concur with replacing the radiator cap first. Getting a mechanical gauge to see what the coolant temps are actually hitting would also be a wise investment.

Haulin_in_Dixie

Sounds like a head gasket seeping if it is coming from the overflow tank. If it is, bad stuff the air will displace the water in the front cylinders and can cook the engine.

Garnet Kid

As an update, I pressure tested the rad cap and it was toast so that has been replaced. Going to have to wait for a good loaded test run to see if that was the problem. I sure hope so, although it would have been a good excuse to get a pdr head I know I never pushed it over 30lbs so I doubt it is the head gasket.

csramsey640

Go to Napa and get some "blue water" you place the adaptor in the overflow, and run the engine. So far 100% of the time, if it turns from blue to yellow, you have a head gasket leak. Most garages have the same tools. It takes about 4 minutes to do.