Overheated driving down the highway today. I’ve been bragging about how much cooler the engine has been running since I did all this engine work, so this caught me a little by surprise. I was stuck on the side of the road with no water, so I did the only thing I could think of to get me rolling again—removed the thermostat and pulled into the first place I could to get some more coolant. All good after that short-term fix.
I’ve got a couple of small things to test as the cause of the overheating: bad thermostat, or bad radiator cap (I already noticed the seals of that were cracked and broken).
Early the next day I brought the truck in to have new rear springs and shocks installed, as well as an overhaul of the brakes. A week later I’m still waiting to get it back. Once it is, I’ve only got a couple of small jobs left (assuming I track down the overheating issue) before it is ready to hit the road for good.
Besides the truck, we’ve been busy with other things. We got to hang out with my brother, who we hadn’t seen in over three years. And we got to combine that with seeing the worst team in baseball play on a beautiful day in Minneapolis. All good.
After the game they let the kids down on the field to run the bases. It’s good fun, but man are they ever insane about people stepping on the grass. Step over that line and you will feel the wrath of stadium personnel come raining down upon you.
Not quite up to robbing the other team of a home run just yet, but a few more years and she’ll have the vertical.
Closing down the stadium.
13 Comments on “Truck and Twins”
Hmmm . . . loyal to the Twins but no love for the Vikings. And to compound it by being a diehard fan of Da Bears – there must be a story in there somewhere.
“After the game they let the kids down on the field to run the bases. It’s good fun, but man are they ever insane about people stepping on the grass. Step over that line and you will feel the wrath of stadium personnel come raining down upon you.”
Does Jim Pohlad yell over the PA system, “Get off my lawn!” 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7X2_V60YK8
TJ
No, but his lackeys sure did.
And actually, since we left to travel I’ve basically lost track of every sport. I don’t really follow anything. It seems like every time I see a sport of some kind on tv at the bar there is some team playing from a city that I didn’t even know had a team.
Just a note about the thermostat; people might tell you to run a lower temp thermostat or remove it completely and that works great, until it doesn’t. I made that mistake several times in my youth until a good mechanic straightened me out. The coolant needs to stop so that it has adequate time in the radiator to cool until the thermostat opens again. You don’t want your engine to run cool, you just don’t want it to run hot. New cars run at very high temperatures for efficiency. Point being I guess, make sure that you are running at least the original temp specified by the manufacturer.
You watched the Braves play in Minnesota? 😉
Hi Pat, Did you confirm the engine timing? If it’s off, it can cause over-heating.
I had to bring the truck in the next day for springs, so I haven’t confirmed anything at all yet. The engine runs so smooth and quiet that I don’t think the timing is off, but I’m not ruling anything out just yet.
Hi Pat,
I would definitely start with the ignition timing (like the bus).
The only other thing that has changed is the new little house on the roof rack, so how about a fairing?
Looking at this bad boy http://i1.wp.com/www.bumfuzzle.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/June30-2.jpg, I would install one of these before heading south: http://tinyurl.com/jqxrfdf.
Last but not least, how/when did this happen? 70 MPH or stuck in traffic for 15+ minutes? If traffic, the solution could be the same as the Limo (fix the aux fan) but it does not look like the Travelall comes with an aux fan(?)
HTH.
Im I crazy to think that the only thing to do was “pee in the radiator”. Meeting you and your beautiful family in Mex reminded of us when our kids were little. So much fun but you put a fire under our butts to start exploring more. So we bought a Bmw 1200gs and will be taking a 4000mile trip in Sept. Hope to see you on the road again. Safe travels. Orlando and Yvette.
I was on the side of the highway, not the side of a mountain. Peeing in the radiator is sort of a last resort move, I’d say. 🙂
Would love to see and hang out with you guys again. Drop us a line with your plans so we can figure out a meet.
Haha, Orlando… I was reading the blurb to the blog and thought the same thing as you, when I read “I did the only thing I could think of…” I really thought Patrick was going to write “pee in the radiator”. What’s wrong with us, right? 🙂
Thought the same thing re: radiator. Che Guevara mentioned that (https://books.google.com/books?id=UMGp5XQ4CA8C&lpg=PA402&ots=wbFQyexN53&dq=che%20guevara%20radiator%20urine&pg=PA402#v=onepage&q=che%20guevara%20radiator%20urine&f=false).
One if those things that may be hard to explain to the kids, though…
With some cars from the 50’s, the bottom radiator hose would have negative pressure in it, when cruising along – especially at high rpm. This could suck that hose almost flat, and a leaky radiator cap seal could make it more likely. They sold lower radiator hoses having a spring in them – to prevent the collapse.
I had though you would go for a new/rebuilt/cleaned-out radiator. They lose their heat transfer capability little by little, and the cleaners I tried didnt make them new again. i replaced our Winnebago radiator every ten years for this reason, along with the fan clutch. Does the vehicle have a viscous drive fan? I kind of think those came along in the 60 and later. But those fan drives lose their ability to spin the fan, and it runs slower year by year. They never just suddenly die; they get insidiously weak.
If you had to add coolant, it would imply there’s a leak somewhere in the coolant loop. Radiator, hoses, water pump, head gasket, crack somewhere in the block, are all under suspicion. Hope it’s not the same as the hole that took so long to find in the Ford Lehman on the boat!