We just finished a 7000 mile trip through several national parks. We have a 2015 Fleetwood Storm 30L powered by the Ford V 10. The motorhome delivered excellent performance even in the higher altitudes. We were towing our Honda CRV. The one thing that puzzled me on the trip was the loss of antifreeze in the overflow container for the radiator. There was no leak that I could determine and the temp gauges on the dash never left normal and the check engine system always registered OK even when it was empty under load. Any thoughts will be appreciated? I had to refill three times. Is this normal for the engine?

No this is not normal. Many on here with the Ford chassis have posted that the gauge is not a graduated gauge and is not accurate. When climbing the hills out west you should see a gradual temp rise until your clutch fan kicks in which should be a loud roar. Did you hear the fan come on? I would use a scan gauge or an IR gun to determine what the real operating temps are.

The clutch fan does operate. A loud roar is an understatement. I thought the transmission was downshifting.

Were you refilling the reservoir to the top, or just adding water to bring it up to the hot or cold lines on the container?Also are you sure that you were refilling the radiator overflow and not the window washer fluid reservoir? :B

It can be a sign of a leaking head gasket. You might start to notice a white smoke when you're under full throttle. That's coolant steam going out the exhaust. It can be caused by a leaking head gasket or by a hole in the EGR cooler. Both are bad news. A good garage can check for both. They can put a coolant pressure checker on the coolant reservoir and see if it holds pressure. If not, they can run a compression check and look for a leaky head gasket.

On a brand new MH I would look for something simple like a bad thermostat or the radiator cap not screwed on all the way. I have seen brand new thermostats fail to open all the way.

Engine cooling system | Good Sam Community

16 Replies

Ozlander
Explorer
Sep 23, 2015
That's not uncommon.
427435
Explorer
Sep 23, 2015
happy-2 wrote:
You may have a hose clamp thats bad, and under pressure you may loose antifreeze,My shop found that on my rv,never could find why i added anti freeze,but the shop found it,

X2

The clamps are spring type, not worm screw type. I had the same problem with the overflow tank going empty (empty, not down to the fill line). There was no sign of leaks either. I eventually found one of the clamps was partially broken off. The leaks must have only happened when the engine was warm enough to evaporate the leakage, so no sign was left. Replaced it with a worm type clamp and no more problem.
Wandering_Storm
Explorer
Sep 23, 2015
Thanks for all of the info and advice. Believe me it is appreciated. The motorhome is going into the shop on Monday in an attempt to solve the problem before our trip to Florida in January. Once again thanks to all. Keep the advice coming.
happy-2
Explorer
Sep 23, 2015
You may have a hose clamp thats bad, and under pressure you may loose antifreeze,My shop found that on my rv,never could find why i added anti freeze,but the shop found it,
Kayteg1
Explorer II
Sep 23, 2015
I drive Ford trucks for years and the "dummy" gauges are pretty annoying.
My advice would be to go Ford truck forum and read common problems with your engine.
I have 6l Powerstroke engine and even it delivers lovely performance, the cooling and headgasket systems have lot of poor designs.
I bought ScanGauge for the truck, installed coolant pressure gauge and drive carefully observing them while climbing the hills.
Lot of owners of Ford engine who did not observe the gauges ended up with need of new engine.
sch911
Explorer
Sep 23, 2015
Ozlander wrote:
Being overfilled won't empty the coolant bottle three times.

Sure it will until it's below the cold fill point...
ArchHoagland
Explorer
Sep 22, 2015
mabynack wrote:
It can be a sign of a leaking head gasket. You might start to notice a white smoke when you're under full throttle. That's coolant steam going out the exhaust. It can be caused by a leaking head gasket or by a hole in the EGR cooler. Both are bad news. A good garage can check for both. They can put a coolant pressure checker on the coolant reservoir and see if it holds pressure. If not, they can run a compression check and look for a leaky head gasket.

I'm with mabynack. I'd take it to Ford and have it checked, that way you have a record established with Ford should the problem come back at a later date.

My 8.1 gas engine will get up 238 degrees sometimes and it doesn't loose any coolant, nor should yours.

I use an UltraGauge to keep track of everything. $70.

Track your temperature.
fourmat
Explorer
Sep 22, 2015
you may want to have it checked while under warranty But if you did not see coolant overflowing, temp gage was normal, no sign of leaks, and no smoke from exhaust my bet is they never had it full and it was being filled by the overflow container. These RV dealers do no PDI to the chassis and they lay around for months sometime the better part of a year at the Manufacturer of the motorhome. I had to bleed all brakes when I got mine due to air in lines.
Ozlander
Explorer
Sep 22, 2015
Being overfilled won't empty the coolant bottle three times.
sch911
Explorer
Sep 22, 2015
I'll bet it was overfilled, and still is. Pay close attention to the hot and cold fill marks on the coolant bottle.