Is it ever too hot to drive?

[CJ]

Drove around in 120 + degree heat for a couple years while in Kuwait. Never had a problem with a stock ford suv.....lol black of all colors.....

[Glenn P.]

Drove my 2005 E350 van with 6.0 diesel fully loaded last summer through the deserts in 100+ degree heat. Off -roaded up into the mountains in the heat, climbed the Kingsbury Grade up to Lake Tahoe in the heat and all was good. Sure the temps climb when the van was climbing grades but then that noisy ass fan kicks in and you can watch the temps start to drop within 10 seconds and the moment we would crest the grade or hill the temps recovered immediately as well. I would not worry one bit about the engine unless you are hauling a super heavy trailer (10,000 lbs) along with your van.

[Stewbie]

I just came across CA, OR, NV, ID, WY, SD in a 2018 Sprinter 4x4 diesel, and was driving through 102-104F mid day temps. Keeping an occasional eye on the engine temp gauge, I saw my morning engine temp at the 180s and the mid after noon at around 200 to 210F. Yeh, the engine got warm sooner, but nothing seemed problematic. At the worst part of the day the outside temp was still 100F cooler than the engine. But then again, that's diesel.
Thanks

PS, my loaded weight is 8245#

[sierraoneill]

The highest I've ever seen my 07 E350 V10 get was a couple summers ago driving up Tioga pass in 90 degree weather from Lee Vining... Engine Temp never went above 216 F and trans temp peaked out at 190 F.

If it weren't for the digital readout I have that gives me real world numbers, I'd never had thought it was any different from driving in a snowstorm in the middle of winter since the temp gauge pretty much is always right at the midpoint on the readout regardless of ambient conditions once up to operating temp.

[Abitibi]

We just had a big heat wave here in BC, never seen 115F here before.

I took my 2008 fully loaded E350 with the stock 6.0 (11,000lbs) up some decent grades (Coquihalla).

I was running the 5 stars 100hp tune but did slow down to 50mph on steepest grade.

My oil temp went up to 253F (briefly)

My tranny temp maxed out at 245 (again, briefly)

On average though tranny was around 220 and oil 235 to 240.

I didn't like to see so high numbers but I tried to baby it up the pass.

Anyway, no issues encountered.

Any ideas on max numbers (or safe range) for engine oil and tranny?

Cheers
David

[carringb]

The 5r110 fluid is good stuff and can tolerate 250F sustained. I think they say 300F for short duration.

Your engine oil temps are elevated. The real big problem is when you have a large delta between engine oil and coolant temps. 10F delta is an early warning or the engine oil cooler plugging. 15F is bad news and means you should avoid long or hard drives until the cooler is replaced. Otherwise you’ll be earning yourself a new EGR cooler shortly.

[Abitibi]

Originally Posted by carringb

The 5r110 fluid is good stuff and can tolerate 250F sustained. I think they say 300F for short duration.

Your engine oil temps are elevated. The real big problem is when you have a large delta between engine oil and coolant temps. 10F delta is an early warning or the engine oil cooler plugging. 15F is bad news and means you should avoid long or hard drives until the cooler is replaced. Otherwise you’ll be earning yourself a new EGR cooler shortly.

Thanks for the info!

I don't have a coolant probe yet but will be installing one soon along with a pyro probe.

It did get a new EGR valve 15k miles ago so hopefully it will make it until it gets deleted...

I also found a donor van with only 85k miles. Planning to swap engine, tranny & rear diff since mine has 280k miles (although it still runs awrsome).

[carringb]

??? Your PCM measure ECT Engine Coolant Temps. Whatever you’re using to read your EOTs should also be capable or displaying your ECT. No probe required.

[Abitibi]

Originally Posted by carringb

??? Your PCM measure ECT Engine Coolant Temps. Whatever you’re using to read your EOTs should also be capable or displaying your ECT. No probe required.

I'll check again but didn't work when I tried.

I'm using the SCT Livewire with the 5 stars tunes.

[CaptainBilly]

Vapor lock can happen. It happened to us in 2017. We were crossing NM / AZ in June heading for Lee's Ferry and the Grand Canyon north rim.
We were in our '92 E250 EB Sportsmobile with the 451 V8 gas engine. Very hot day and the newly paved macadam road was very, very hot. We were on a miles-long upgrade when we suddenly lost engine power. Pumping the gas let us get off the side of the road.
For about 1/2 hour couldn't get the engine to start. Tried many things and on the 23rd or so try the engine started. Started up the grade again but made it only a mile or two until the same problem recurred.

Waited awhile and got restarted. We mad it to the top and on to a service shop eventually. Turns out the (at the time) 25 year-old fuel pump was dieing. At "normal" it could function but not when the gasoline was boiling.
So we replaced the pump which was non-trivial as it is mounted inside the gas tank. Tank had to be dropped to access the, from-the-top, mounted pump.
Problem solved and never returned. In 50 years of driving I had heard of vapor lock but never had it happen to me. Here's wikipedia link for more info but basically the fuel vaporizes from heat.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vapor_lock