Diesel_Day_Dreamin
08-09-2006, 11:36 AM
If I posted in the wrong section, please move this thread...
Well everyone, 6841 miles in three weeks, this vacation is in my history book. Fuel mileage ranged from 14.6 mpg to 9.4 mpg, hand calculated at every fill up. The low mileage was in 113°F heat with a collapsed “Purolator” air filter. I was towing at around 12k lbs., down from the anticipated 14k lbs. The obvious being the cost of diesel! I paid anywhere from a high of $3.29 to a low of $2.87 a gallon. Speeds ranged from 60 to 85 mph (highway). The 9.4 mpg tankfull was when I was trying to "overheat" my truck, holding the throttle to the floor while climbing a steep grade.
We only had two mishaps on this trip. The first being the Turbo Charger hose blowing off while climbing the continental divide east of Butte, Montana. The wife, flipping out wondering what had just happened, was surprised to see I knew what happened and was able to fix it in a few minutes (thank you Diesel Place for all the interesting reading!). This was short lived… The pipe blew off three more times before pulling into Butte. To correct this (until arriving back home), I ended up taking my Vise Grips and flaring out the end of the aluminum pipe to keep it from slipping out of it’s boot. Why does this kind of thing only happen to me on a Sunday afternoon??? I will be visiting the dealer real soon to have the pipe replaced. The other mishap was not one, but two stones hitting my windshield. On I15 where the highway was “tar and chipped” and all kinds of loose stone was in the non-traveled part of the roadway. Someone decided to change lanes, which peppered the car in front of me and gave my windshield two chips (and a resulting crack).
There are those who say, “all LLYs are overheaters”… I DID NOT overheat! In the 113° heat, all I could muster was 243° engine coolant temperature. The fan came on at about 205° and ran constantly until I slowed down and it could cool to 190°. Again, I was towing about 12k lbs. (no, I don’t have a weight slip, I weighed everything going in the camper as we loaded it and added it to the “dry weight”), and was at about 5000 feet +/- elevation. I would be abusing my truck to push it to the point of overheating, (if I could get to that point). Now to be fair, I must say that I did the “Stack Seal” mod before my trip. I also have some “front porch” screening in front of the stack to keep the bugs out of the radiators.
Our trip included Indianapolis, Indiana, to Minneapolis, Minnesota (Mall of America), to Badlands, Rapid City, Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse, South Dakota, to Devil's Tower, Wyoming, to Glacier National Park, Montana, to Moab, Utah (Arches and Canyonlands NP.), Then back home via Interstate 70.
Improvements? Yes! I will be adding MORE FUEL CAPACITY for the next trip. What a pain in the Censored to have to stop every few hours to fuel up! The nice part was having the "facilities" with you everywhere we went... A bathroom or snack break was just a safe pullover away. The kids were entertained by the just installed DVD system playing on the headrest displays with video/audio also playing through my navigation/Bose stereo system. The added sub speakers made the movies sound like my home theater. Not once did I hear, "are we there yet", (unbelievable), well, I think I heard a couple "how much further"s.
Well everyone, 6841 miles in three weeks, this vacation is in my history book. Fuel mileage ranged from 14.6 mpg to 9.4 mpg, hand calculated at every fill up. The low mileage was in 113°F heat with a collapsed “Purolator” air filter. I was towing at around 12k lbs., down from the anticipated 14k lbs. The obvious being the cost of diesel! I paid anywhere from a high of $3.29 to a low of $2.87 a gallon. Speeds ranged from 60 to 85 mph (highway). The 9.4 mpg tankfull was when I was trying to "overheat" my truck, holding the throttle to the floor while climbing a steep grade.
We only had two mishaps on this trip. The first being the Turbo Charger hose blowing off while climbing the continental divide east of Butte, Montana. The wife, flipping out wondering what had just happened, was surprised to see I knew what happened and was able to fix it in a few minutes (thank you Diesel Place for all the interesting reading!). This was short lived… The pipe blew off three more times before pulling into Butte. To correct this (until arriving back home), I ended up taking my Vise Grips and flaring out the end of the aluminum pipe to keep it from slipping out of it’s boot. Why does this kind of thing only happen to me on a Sunday afternoon??? I will be visiting the dealer real soon to have the pipe replaced. The other mishap was not one, but two stones hitting my windshield. On I15 where the highway was “tar and chipped” and all kinds of loose stone was in the non-traveled part of the roadway. Someone decided to change lanes, which peppered the car in front of me and gave my windshield two chips (and a resulting crack).
There are those who say, “all LLYs are overheaters”… I DID NOT overheat! In the 113° heat, all I could muster was 243° engine coolant temperature. The fan came on at about 205° and ran constantly until I slowed down and it could cool to 190°. Again, I was towing about 12k lbs. (no, I don’t have a weight slip, I weighed everything going in the camper as we loaded it and added it to the “dry weight”), and was at about 5000 feet +/- elevation. I would be abusing my truck to push it to the point of overheating, (if I could get to that point). Now to be fair, I must say that I did the “Stack Seal” mod before my trip. I also have some “front porch” screening in front of the stack to keep the bugs out of the radiators.
Our trip included Indianapolis, Indiana, to Minneapolis, Minnesota (Mall of America), to Badlands, Rapid City, Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse, South Dakota, to Devil's Tower, Wyoming, to Glacier National Park, Montana, to Moab, Utah (Arches and Canyonlands NP.), Then back home via Interstate 70.
Improvements? Yes! I will be adding MORE FUEL CAPACITY for the next trip. What a pain in the Censored to have to stop every few hours to fuel up! The nice part was having the "facilities" with you everywhere we went... A bathroom or snack break was just a safe pullover away. The kids were entertained by the just installed DVD system playing on the headrest displays with video/audio also playing through my navigation/Bose stereo system. The added sub speakers made the movies sound like my home theater. Not once did I hear, "are we there yet", (unbelievable), well, I think I heard a couple "how much further"s.