I had a close encounter with overheating on Labor Day

[ClayJ]

I took my wife, daughter, and Son in law up Mt Herman for a picnic on labor day.

I drove most of the way up in 2nd gear just barely above idle, and after 15 minutes I noticed the temp was up near 220 on my newly refurbished cluster gauge. I could also smell the sweet odor of coolant on the air. I shifted down to 1st and just let the engine rev higher. The temp quickly dropped back to 190 and the smell went away.

Is this typical for other Broncos? I've never really noticed overheating on a slow climb in 2nd before. (3 speed RAT transmission).

While I'm on the subject of Mt Herman on labor day, may I just say the are was horrible looking after a summer of people shooting anywhere they felt like it. Plastic shot up garbage was everywhere. Trees cut down from shooting. The area littered with shotgun shells, bullet casing, cans, and burnt out crap.

Do people just have zero feelings for the outdoors to leave that much crap after they've been shooting, and to judge from the cans, ing?

I was especially appalled to see large caliber bullet holes on trees where the person was obviously shooting out over the road and out over trail areas. Although we never heard bullets zipping through the trees around us, the evidence of stupid shooters and the sounds of at least 5 groups nearby made us cut our picnic short and head back down.

[Jesus_man]

Maybe you were working your motor harder than you thought. But keep in mind V8's like to rev. It's hard on them to lug 'em down.

As far as the shooting, it is terrible. The last Eagle Rock run I made, I saw maybe a dozen trees mowed down by shotgun blasts point-blank. Everywhere I go, I see more trash and plain old disrespect for the forest and for others. Maybe some of them will catch a ricochet??

J.D.

[ZOSO]

Also going that slow with that load your not moving any air across the radiator or a lot of coolant through the radiator.

[Justin]

So what would a normal rev range be for the 302? Mine seems to run out of steam around 4000 rpm, but I suspect the carb tuning is at fault.

[ZOSO]

Stock I'd say 4k is about right. Its not the carb that causes it. It's the cam and heads. the sweet spot should be about 1800+.

[Justin]

I wish. That'd be cool (or hot, as the case may be). Thanks Zoso, that was about what I had figured. I'm used to little bitty 4 cylinders that rev to 7000, so 4000 seems really low to me. I suspect I'd get more out of it with some tuning anyway. I'm getting some stuttering above 3k.

[ZOSO]

Stock I'd say 4k is about right. Its not the carb that causes it. It's the cam and heads. the sweet spot should be about 1800+.

Holy Crap! 1800 Degrees. Are you driving the Space Shuttle????

Blast off!!!

[Viperwolf1]

1800 degrees is too cold for a good solid rocket fuel burn. That stuff burns at many thousands of degrees and will eat a hole in the asphault if you light a big chunk of it and throw it out onto the street in Roy, Utah in the middle of the night.

Lugging uphill at low rpm will get the motor warm. It's even worse with an auto trans because the torque converter generates lots of additional heat when it's below it's stall speed and multiplying torque.