Yesterday I did some extensive towing with my LLY and had some trouble with it overheating. When I got where I was going I popped the hood and starting looking around. I had just had the oil changed 2000 miles ago and had a new air filter put in at that time. Well the air filter was completely clogged and had a bunch of engine oil in it. Now my question is was it just a crappy filter and when it got clogged it created a vacuum which is why there was oil in it or was it the oil that caused the clog? Could this be a more serious problem? I put a new filter in it this morning and will be removing the Bully Dog PMT before towing again today. The truck only has 43000 miles on it.

So you just replaced a DRY filter only 2000 miles ago, and now it has a bunch of oil on the filter?

What do you mean by extensive towing? And what do you mean by troubles with overheating? Please be a little more specific.

Well I pulled an 8,000 pound camper about 500 miles. Basically I couldn't drive over 50 miles an hour yesterday or the temps on the truck would get over 230 degrees.

And yes it was just a dry paper filter (fram to be exact) and now it has engine oil in the air box and filter.

sure its oil???? painter

I am having a hard time figuring out how oil could get onto the air filter..... Intercooler leaking tons of oil on that side? Even then I doubt it ... ....

I ran in to this same problem on my cousins truck. 05 gmc lly with edge juice no attitude. I changed his filter because it had oil on it and it only had about 15000 miles on it. It was quite a bit of oil too.

I ran in to this same problem on my cousins truck. 05 gmc lly with edge juice no attitude. I changed his filter because it had oil on it and it only had about 15000 miles on it. It was quite a bit of oil too.

I have seen oil residue on my filter, and I assume it's from the boot on the intercooler. 15000 miles on a filter I wish I could go that long. I average about 5000 miles max.

I don't know that I would call 500 miles towing 8000 lbs extensive. That should be no problem for these trucks. I towed about 12000 lbs 2200 miles for vacation, and had no problems. The temps may not have been what you were seeing however. I found that if I kept the speed to around 65 mph and removed the cloudrider front cover, the temps were fine. If you need an O/H solution, see post #5 for help.
PS I have also re-routed my PCV to keep the oil out of the intecooler. Maybe it is from this?