quote:

6K mile trip Florida-Oregon-California-Florida.

Nice to hear you had 6000 safe miles! TruckingBarthing Keith!!

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What transmission temperatures did you see in the mountains? What about the engine temperature on the purring little CAT? When going up the long mountain climbing to the top what speed could you maintain? I am asking for comparison since we both have 38 foot rigs.

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My coach weighs in just over 15 ton. My Honda Dinghy weighs about 3K. I saw a 210 degree engine temperature in the North Carolina Mountains. Transmission temperature was 220 degrees. The slowest speed was 28 miles per hour up the mountain. My cat used a quart of oil in the 2700 mile trip.

Are you bragging about the size of your dinghy?

I pull a Mini Clubman...similar weight I think. Also packed a 340 pound Yamaha.

Trans temp went high on "up" hills..not sure how high. Engine temp too high but that was because of chronic belt issues. My lowest uphill speed about the same as yours.

I replaced driver seat with a new Flexsteel and this made all the difference...originals way too soft.

More on belt issues later...ahem.

When we had our 1984 3208 Turbo CAT we were told to ONLY use Gillig belts, we ordered directly from Gillig, never had an issue (the coach just done a round trip cross country, thru the rockies - no problems acc new owners). Just be prepared for the Gillig guy to ask "WHAT year you say??????"

I am not sure Gillig belts are all that important. I have 17000 miles on my belts and they are not Gillig. Gillig builds inter city bus platforms. They do not necessarily build belts. My guess is they contract the belts out. I believe this conversation has came up before. Checking belts is important as checking the oil.

I had a similar issue (although with a serpentine belt). The problem was that the AMG 6.5L TD has both a crankshaft damper (which I replaced with a silicon-damped instead of the rubber-insert version) and an accessory belt damped pulley, which was OEM, and had never been replaced; it was shot.

The issue with the belt on mine was that the pulsing from the crankshaft, undamped, wore out the tensioner. Since then, I've had no problems with the belts coming off.

Keith, you posted your trip was 6000 miles. How many hours did your hour meter count during the most recent trip. How was the oil consumption in your 3208 Caterpillar? Did you change oil on the trip? I am guessing you put about 200 hours on the old Barth?