So it's along story here, but for the past few years whenever I have the van fully loaded and tow for a full day in hot weather the car overheats to the point of shutting itself down.
Symptoms are basically the temp gauge on the dash goes from just over half (where it normally runs) to red in about 5 seconds and then I lose power.
I know it a combination of things. I have a Bullbar with Winch and LED bar across the front (restricting air flow), under body protection and a long range tank (once again reduced air flow) and fully loaded it's pushing 6.4T GCM (yes I have the Lovells upgraded GCM). The
Anyway, previously I thought it may have been the iDrive (I forgot to disable it when we pushed up central SA). A subsequent drive up the NSW coast with it turned off saw me lose power again.
After a little bit of a Google search on a few Ranger forums I found others had the same issue with similar circumstances (fully loaded, hot day, etc). They ALL ended up changing the viscous hub and the issues went away (after many other things - this seemed to be the golden bullet). Always at around the 100K mark as well.
So I booked my car In to have this replaced, but in the week between my making the booking and dropping the car off I split the Intercooler hose (talk about bad timing). So I drop the car straight into Ford on the way to work that morning. They replaced the hose under an extended part warranty (There is a known part specific recall and it was going to be done on the next service anyway) and replaced the Viscous hub while it was there.
I am yet to tow (Wednesday is the big test) but the car temp gauge now sits 1/8 under where it always did previously so that's a good sign.....
I never had TorquePro running while the issue occurred - but will be running it the entire trip in a few days.
Will report back in a few days.
Symptoms are basically the temp gauge on the dash goes from just over half (where it normally runs) to red in about 5 seconds and then I lose power.
I know it a combination of things. I have a Bullbar with Winch and LED bar across the front (restricting air flow), under body protection and a long range tank (once again reduced air flow) and fully loaded it's pushing 6.4T GCM (yes I have the Lovells upgraded GCM). The
Anyway, previously I thought it may have been the iDrive (I forgot to disable it when we pushed up central SA). A subsequent drive up the NSW coast with it turned off saw me lose power again.
After a little bit of a Google search on a few Ranger forums I found others had the same issue with similar circumstances (fully loaded, hot day, etc). They ALL ended up changing the viscous hub and the issues went away (after many other things - this seemed to be the golden bullet). Always at around the 100K mark as well.
So I booked my car In to have this replaced, but in the week between my making the booking and dropping the car off I split the Intercooler hose (talk about bad timing). So I drop the car straight into Ford on the way to work that morning. They replaced the hose under an extended part warranty (There is a known part specific recall and it was going to be done on the next service anyway) and replaced the Viscous hub while it was there.
I am yet to tow (Wednesday is the big test) but the car temp gauge now sits 1/8 under where it always did previously so that's a good sign.....
I never had TorquePro running while the issue occurred - but will be running it the entire trip in a few days.
Will report back in a few days.