Driving over mountains hard on truck?

I don’t know about trucks, but they can be hard on under trousers for some.

 

Make it work. Its built to handle it.

 

I’ve always ran this way on hills: I’ll find what ever gear it’ll pull the hardest and fastest speed, then I’ll grab a gear lower, and run the fan on manual. I won’t ring it’s neck, just a little under peak torque in that gear. I like to keep the rev’s high to keep the fan speed up, keeping as much air moving across the radiator, it’ll also help with keeping air moving under the rig, cooling diffs, and trans. Running down the same grade is typically a gear lower than I came up, and toggling Jake settings, from none to three. If you are doing in correctly, you shouldn’t have to touch the brake peddle.

 

That or pull over and let them cool off.

 

Having a manual fan override helps. Usually just turn it on at the bottom and let er scream all the way to the top watching oil temp and praying you make it. lol

 

If the climb is long enough the real enemy is heat. If you go up as fast as you can in the highest gear you can, then on really hot days you could be pushing your luck. Just run it one or two gears down, maybe three quarters throttle and it will climb all day without issue.
I was climbing north bound from Phoenix to Flagstaff on a hot day, fully loaded ran it down a few gears and did fine. A pusher rv pulling a car passed me. Pushing it hard, he got too hot had to pull over and let it cool. Then he passed me again, samething. Then he separated the car, his wife drove that. Passed me again. Same problem, pulled over to cool it. Then he pulled in behind me and sat there to the top, he never had to pull over again. At least not until he hooked up the car again, passed me and never saw him again.

 

If I’m not accelerating uphill if I hammer down then I’m in the wrong gear and putting a strain on the engine.

that’s how I look at it.