Radiators, Tractors, and Max Mileage
It’s that time of year again, winter is over, and our trucks have suffered from the ingestion of road salt (sodium and magnesium chloride) spray into the radiator and air filters. The road spray that comes off of the tires of the vehicle in front of you is highly corrosive and accumulates on the fins of the radiator and in the air filter. The tubes take the heat out of the coolant and the fins take the heat away from the tubes. Without the fins the radiator will not cool the antifreeze. The radiator shroud enables the fan to draw the air through the radiator. However, the part of the radiator that is covered by the shroud collects most of the road salt. Being that the charge air cooler is mounted in front of the radiator and the shroud is behind the radiator, it’s almost impossible to wash the fins of the radiator. My suggestion, don’t tailgate the vehicle in front of you, the more spray that hits the front of your truck, the sooner you will have to replace the radiator. Now is the time to take a high intensity flashlight and look between the fan shroud and the radiator and inspect the condition of the fins. If they are missing or deteriorated such as the radiators in the pictures, it’s time to purchase a new radiator. Please don’t wait until it’s 85 degrees outside and you can’t control the coolant temperature. And by all means please don’t purchase a cheap radiator; it’s cheap because it has fewer tubes and fins. The tubes and the fins are the heart of the radiator and the more the better.
I’m going to tell you the difference between our high performance 379 Peterbilt radiator versus a stock radiator. A stock 379 Pete radiator that came with a DD3 or 4 Detroit with 500 hp has 177 tubes, if the tractor was equipped with a 550 Caterpillar engine the radiator had 234 tubes. The number of fins per inch were 14 and the tubes were straight. Our custom-built high capacity radiator for the 379 Pete has 400 tubes (that is 4 rows of tubes and 100 tubes per row.) And, the tubes are dimpled, which increases the surface area, slows down the coolant slightly, and removes more heat out of the coolant. We also increase the fins to 16 per inch. Looking at those numbers you can see why the radiator not only costs more, but the possibility of overheating the engine and causing serious damage is eliminated. If you determine that you need a radiator, please call us with your vin number and the part number from your radiator and we can tell you if it’s in stock or needs to be custom built. Custom builds can take up to 3 weeks. So please don’t put off inspecting your radiator, avoid the summer rush. Like the saying goes, “The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of a low price is forgotten.”
You may have heard in recent news the ongoing legal battle between John Deere and American farmers over the right to repair their equipment. If you haven’t heard about it, John Deere is arguing that they have exclusive right to the machine’s software, and anybody attempting to modify that software is breaking copyright law. The implications of this means it is nearly impossible to diagnose and repair a John Deere tractor without taking it to the dealer. Our opinion is that if you spend hundreds of thousands on a new tractor, you should have the right to repair it yourself. But until this legal battle is worked out, our Max Mileage Fuel Borne Catalyst is a great tool to avoid costly repairs on farm equipment and generators. Many do not realize it’s not just for trucks. I recently received the following message from Wilfred Krenz from Wisconsin. “I am a 64 year old logger in central Wisconsin and enjoy listening to your show. I run a John Deere 1110E double bunk 8-wheel forwarder, with an ESPAR preheater that refused to work half the time. John Deere said it was bad fuel. I heard on your show on satellite radio, you said this would work to clean out ESPAR heaters. I started using it Max Mileage FBC in mid December and put over 500 hours on the forwarder. The ESPAR heater never failed once. The forwarder motor no longer smokes, and there is a faster response on the forwarder. Great product.”
Here’s another review from a customer using it in his APU. “I have a 2016 APU that used to burn oil at a quart every 70-80 hours. I have been using Max Mileage fuel borne catalyst for almost a year now. The APU has not needed a drop of oil in my last 1000 hours of running. Thank you for Max Mileage FBC. My truck and APU thank you also.”
Most likely what is happening in both scenarios is carbon packed in the piston rings is causing blow-by. Max Mileage FBC cleans and burns off that built up carbon so now there is a better seal from the cylinder liner to the piston rings allowing for a better running engine with less oil consumption. The catalyst has been tested in lots of different types of industrial equipment including two stroke engines and shows a clear improvement for all internal combustion engines. We have had the Max Mileage Catalyst on the market for 1 year now and every week we receive several testimonials as to how it has helped not only emissions equipped engines, it is also helping all gasoline and diesel engines. If you have a 425B Caterpillar engine that smokes at idle, the Max Mileage fuel catalyst will eliminate that problem for you plus the engine will run smoother and pull stronger.
My prediction is if you purchase a brand new truck and run the Max Mileage FBC in the fuel from day one, the engine and emission system will run trouble free for 1.25 to 1.5 million miles. You still have to perform routine maintenance. I have reports on new X-15 Cummins engines that have had the Max Mileage in the fuel since new and at 15,000 miles still no re-gens.
Written by Bruce Mallinson and Andrew Wilson
Pittsburgh Power, Inc.
3600 South Noah Dr., Saxonburg, PA 16056
724-360-4080 PittsburghPower.com