4104 Owner Battery Question

[Kevin]

Amen Brother!

We've had ours up to "dirt-bike-heaven" Kennedy Meadows here in SoCal quite a few times. It is up into the 7-8 thousand feet elevation nose-bleeder territory. I'm pretty much ground down into 2nd gear for a loooong ways there, and eventually even into 1st in order to bend 'er around this one ridiculously tight blind right-hand corner.

My buddy has a 2003 GMC DuraMax with Allison auto. He tows a BIG toy hauler... like 35 footer. I led the way up the hill at his request (I told him I'd be draggin' my behind at a snail's pace) but he insisted. After a bit I noticed that he fell behind. I wasn't ABOUT to stop 'cause it is bloody steep! Near the top there is a gas station/convenience store. Daughter Sarah and I stopped there - where it sort of levels off and you can actually upshift again - to wait for our buddy.

Wait we did. About 45 minutes. We were kickin' it in our camping chairs sipping soda pops when John finally showed up. Turns out his (then brand-new) Duramax Allison trans overheated three times on the climb up and he was forced to pull over and let 'er cool down. Heh, heh, heh. 

The 1960 Ol' Dinosaur just mosied up, cool as a cucumber, dirt-bike trailer in tow.... Ahhh... It's life's little pleasures, ain't it? 

Kevin

[gus]

John probably could have prevented the overheating by shifting down, even ATs need to be managed properly.

I do this with my Allison in the mts, it is slow going but it works. I'm in no hurry, one gets to see more of the scenery that way!

[DaveNCari]

Ok.....so....what speed do you downshift to 2nd?

And then 1st....

Dave

[Mex-Busnut]

It isn't so much the vehicle's speed, but the engine's RPM that you consider for up-shifting and down-shifting.

[gus]

Mine automatically shifts to 2nd at about 45 and 1st at 25 but I often have to manually shift it into 1st or by almost stopping.

45 is too slow for second because it quickly pulls down so I usually manual shift at around 50 to keep the roms up. It will overheat quickly in 2nd below about 35 on a hard pull.

However, my trans does not shift down as other 730s on the board do so my system may not work for you.

[chessie4905]

he wasn't assuming the trans temp shouldn't be higher than coolant temp?