UncleFester

Tomorrow, I am starting a 1,600 mike trip from the Northeast to Dallas. Although I have towed in the past, I have never tried a trip of that length involving so many hills (PA and TN). When it is all loaded up, the trailer will only be a little over 3K pounds. 2 adults and 2 kids.

My 2.7EB came with a transmission cooler; however, I can’t for the life of me find a reference in the manual to the “normal” temps vs I should start to worry temps are.


Thanks in advance.

l3rian

This was at the the top of the hill coming up I77 to Fancy Gap. It's about 7 miles uphill. I was towing over 5k in an 8.5' wide enclosed trailer.

I towed a little over 1200 miles in 2 days. The highest trans temp I saw was 209. Highest engine temp was 214. Both of the blue gauges never moved from the current position which to me looks slightly left of center in the normal range for both gauges. I dont know where the gauges top out, but you should be just fine.

smokeywren

If your F-150 includes the digital tranny temp gauge watch the digital gauge closely when the drivetrain is under stress. 190° to 210° is normal when towing. 210° to 220° is hot but okay. If you see 220°, then begin watching the gauge very closely. 225° is the red line. If it hits 225°, it's time to pull over and stop and cool off, with the engine at elevated idle of about 1200 RPM.

What causes overheated tranny? The big thing is an unlocked torque converter while climbing a steep grade, or when stuck in stop-and-go rush-hour traffic. Keep the speed up over 50 MPH and you shouldn't have the volcano worth of heat caused by the unlocked hard working torque converter. Normal interstate hills and mountain passes should not cause you to poke along so slow that the torque converter unlocks and begins generating that volcano worth of heat that can overcome the cooling system. Assuming you have a trailer towing pkg, then you should have enough tranny cooling capacity to control the tranny temps at less than 225°.

UncleFester

Thanks!! she never got above 205. Tomorrow, we are scheduled to go 500 Miles (our sanity is the big limiter - 4 & 7 y/o passengers)

l3rian

I did my trip with a the wife, 2 small dogs, and 6 month old. Stopping every 3 hours for gas worked out perfectly for him.

l3rian

And I get to do it the other way in a month or so.

Apples

What was the ambient air temp outside that day in the area you had been driving?

schmenke

Listen to what smokeywren said about the torque converter.
If your truck is equipped with the "Tow/Haul" feature, use it, as one of the things it does is to lock up the torque converter, helping to keep the tranny cool.

tcp2

My scangauge showed 235f for both coolant and transmission temp towing up some very steep grades at slow speed. The gauges never moved off normal. I think it takes over 255f before the engine controls start to throttle things back. The thermostat doesn’t even allow flow through the cooler until you hit 180f or so.

l3rian

It was probably 55°-60°.