welcome to PSN. as long as it is not spitting coolant or running rough i would not worry about it. these engines come with either 185 or 195 t-stats, and running at 200+ degrees is normal and nonthing to worry about. my 02 runs 210-220 plowing snow for 24 hours at a time. i have seen 240-260 for sometimes 45 minutes when towing heavy loads up long grades in summer too.

 

It could be a lot of things. I, personally, would not want it to run that hot.

 

Did you hear your fan lock up?

 

i have never heard a fan clutch lock on any of my cars or trucks.
my class 8 trucks on the other hand, it sounds like a jet engine and you feel the power drop 40-50 hp.

 

Historically, Fords have always operated cooler than the other brands. Every piece of the cooling system plays an important part in the process. From the impeller in the water pump to the clutch fan to the thermostat and so-on. How are your hoses? Are they thin or flimsy feeling?

 

Depends where the temp sender is on how accurate the gauge is
If in the head, it will show hotter than say the thermostat housing

Find out where the sender is before you start replacing things, could just be a false reading

 

Yeah first question, where are you reading this to know 260*?

 

:whs:
Where, and with what, are you reading the coolant temp?

as long as it is not spitting coolant or running rough i would not worry about it. these engines come with either 185 or 195 t-stats, and running at 200+ degrees is normal and nonthing to worry about. my 02 runs 210-220 plowing snow for 24 hours at a time. i have seen 240-260 for sometimes 45 minutes when towing heavy loads up long grades in summer too.

Powerstroke's generally have a 195°F thermostat as stock, however a 205°F thermo' was used in some of the older engines, as well as in some original IH/Navistar T444e engines, and the 205's are also available in the aftermarket (from DieselSite and others) in the short-stem version for the Ford aluminum water pumps. You can also find a 185°F 'thermo, but why? It serves no purpose (the higher temp makes the engine run better, theoretically).

A coolant temp of 260°F would be virtually impossible to reach in an engine cooling system, as 252°F is 31 psia (~16.3 psig) and the pressure relief cap would be blowing long before. The cooling system is max-rated @ 15 psi/250°F. Running consistently up near or above 240°F is running hot.



As mentioned previously, could be many things: Low coolant level, plugged radiator (inside or out), a stuck thermostat, a faulty water pump, or something as simple as a bad gauge sender. All things that need to be checked.


I'm running a 205°F 'stat in my truck (although I'm also running the T444 water pump/filter setup and an aftermarket, all-aluminum radiator), and I never get above a normal range, no matter how hot it is outside, or what my load.



~Al

 

Thank you guys for all the advice sorry i havent gotten back on sooner. I ended up changing t-stat to be safe the old one turned out to work fine. Its now winter time and around 40s-50s during the day so it runs around 180* average. I noticed the cold start and running cold is getting more rough. A friend of mine was telling me injectors are going bad and stiction is most likely causing it due to once the engine is warm it smooths out. I took it to a shop and paid 300$ for them to tell me hpop pressure is low and injectors are going. Then this past week during a cold start, it leaked almost a quart of oil in a couple seconds then sealed up again. I found the oil cooler oring was leaking so i replaced that and topped fluids off again.

The issue tonight is now the coolant level. I know it lost about 6 gallons of coolant while i had the oil cooler off(SIDE NOTE i found what looks like a seal in the oil cooler. pic attached). Everythings back together now and i put 5 gallons of coolant into degas bottle. Started it and ran for about 30 mins, idling and driving. The degas bottle didnt circulate at all and is still filled to the top at same level I left it. The system seems to not be replenishing.

 

Photos

 

Kind of hard to see, but you pulled rubber pieces out of the INSIDE of the oil cooler? :surprise:

And yes, like tjctransport said, tell your friend hes a dummy.

 

your "friend" that told you you have stiction does not know what he is talking about. ....that is a 6.0 thing, not a 7.3 thing.

 

We have a 2000 that would run hot. We couldn’t hear the fan like we thought we should and had the fan clutch replaced. It didn’t get fixed until we had the radiator replaced. Truck had around 200,000 on it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Do you have heat in the cab?

 

yes i had heat in the cab and yes those were rubber pieces what looks to be a seal

 

Just found this post while googling on a road trip again. Hah Wanted to say thank you to all who donated their time and energy to help me. Lots of good info to reread again years later. Truck's doing great by the way

 

What ended up being the problem?