Upgraded My Truck
We purchased a Jayco TT and have a 2012 Chevy 1500 with a 5.3L, which did fine on our first trip but it was mostly rolling hills. Our second trip was a lot of steep grades and at times I was in 2nd g...
Forum Discussion
Villain2000 wrote:
Wow, I have a 32 foot tt that weighs in at about 6774lbs. dry. My 5.0 f150 with 3.55 gears tows it great. I think your old Chevy might have been geared too high. You have more than enough truck with that Duramax. Overkill even. But you did say a 5th wheel was in your future, so you'll be ready when that time comes for sure.
My sister had a 1500 Chevy, and it would overheat on even small mountains, so she traded it in on a F-150 Ecoboost that tows the same toyhauler up and down the hills just fine.
I also had a 1985 GMC class C, that also overheated when driven on flat ground in 95F heat. The only solution was to install a much larger transmission cooler to pre-cool the fluid before it went into the bottom of the radiator, and also keep the transmission cooler on the outlet of the radiator, then install a water pump system to spray water onto the radiator when it was over 95F to keep the temperatures down.
I traded it for a class A Ford, and put the same transmission gauge on it, never went over 200F unless I was climbing a mountain, then would peak around 215F.
Fred.
