All right guys/girls I am new to your forums and would first like to say hi.

I just bought a used 2000, 2500 (gas) about 4 months ago and it has been a great truck. That is until a couple weeks ago i was pulling my 26ft camping trailer to go camping and climbing a low grade hill. As i have taken my trailer up much worse i didnt think anything of it until i started spraying coolent everywhere.
I got out to find that my radiator had cracked. I swapped out the radiator, t-stat and the radiator cap thinking while i was at it i might as well fix what may have caused me to overheat.
The truck can idle without overheating but if i just putt around the block i start getting too hot. I started looking close at the engine to spot any leaks or anything and found that the timing chain cover gasket was melted and letting air out.
After reading 11 pages on here of possible solutions i will be heading home and check to see if my fan is loose (clutch), looking at my oil to see if it is discolored and checking my hoses coming from my pump to check for leaks or cloges.

So my question is?
1. Does timing chain gasket leak cause an engine to overheat or it is more of a problem caused by the overheating?

I would greatly appriciate any help in this as i'm really hoping i didn't blow a head gasket and of course what has me worried are the people talking overheating problems YEARS after the initial because they can't find a cause.

Thanks all

 

edited deleted

 

water pump could be shot, and as for the timing cover gasket, just replace it, if you have basic knowledge about vehicles you can do it. I did mine in less that 3 hours. The bitch of it is just getting the harmonic balencer off. and if you do the water pump you might as well do the timing cover gasket anways

 

Make sure that t-stat you installed works. Even the good "name brands" sometimes have failures out of the box. The technique I've been told on here is to heat up the t-stat in a pot of water to 200 degrees (or just above whatever temp your t-stat is rated at), and make sure it opens like it should. They are supposed to fail open if anything, but sometimes they fail closed.