I have been stumped with a question and cannot for the life of me find an answer. I own a 2004 dodge ram 3500 with the 5.9 cummins and auto trans. The truck has a 6" BDS lift, 3" body and sitting on 37" nitto boots. I have a Bully Dog programmer installed with no issues, except for an overheating issue. This issue seems to be constant now under any load or haul. We are talking *******ly no weight. It heats up hills like no tomorrow and will easily climb into the red on guage and programmer. Will hit extreme temps of 245 and go into full limp mode with engine loss of power hauling a tent trailer of all things. I have done the thermostat and water pump and installed flex-a-lite dual 15" fans. Coolant flush and trans fluid flush. I dislike throwing money out the window as most would. But on the last haul it gave the po217 on the programmer. Takes forever to cool down unless your going fast enough to do so, but will heat up in no time climbing a steady grade with no load for this truck. I need some help here. Please!

 

Sounds like a blown head gasket, imho. Either that or you've got a plugged up radiator or a faulty temp sensor.

 

Hi horatio,

What's an IMHO? I think could be a head gasket also or rad but how to know which of the two evils? The temp sensor would make sense, but truck gets hot though and that's why limp mode for engine and trans. If it was a sensor the truck wouldnt be hot, just be a false reading right? Or are you thinking its false and throwing the truck to overheat and force the engine and trans to limp mode?

Nice to read some feedback

Cheers,
Dan

 

IMHO "In My Humble Opinion" What coolant did you replace with when you did the water pump and flush. We require G05 and differant coolants do not mix well now-a days, even a small amount left over during an exchange can cause problems. Do you have any oil floating in your coolant when you take the radiator cap off? Any water in the engine oil?

 

I would check for water in the oil, oil in the radiator/overflow bottle, and white smoke out the tailpipe. A 5 gas analyzer can sniff the coolant, or you can use a chemical block tester to see if there are hydrocarbons bubbling out the radiator.

If you have an infrared thermometer you can get the truck warmed up (take it for a drive) and then measure the temp of the radiator at multiple points - it should be somewhat uniform, with the outlet side being a bit cooler than the inlet side, but if you get big parts that are abnormally cool all the way across, you have a flow issue.