Trip report:
Loaded the Green Machine onto a flatbed and hauled it to Afton, Wyoming for their annual mud rally put on by Eric Westover (
@blazinzuk ) and Frank did awesome! Yukon on trailer came to around 8500 lbs, which isn't a huge load, but a decent one for a 3/4 ton truck, and I'll say this:
I love diesel!
I pulled Parleys summit at 55 mph, which the final grade is 3 miles at 6%, and that I only slowed to that speed because with the ac on the engine ran up to ~240° and I didn't want to overheat it. But it immediately cooled off on the other side. One thing I didn't like, but I'm assuming it's ok because I don't think the trans would do anything outside of its programming, is that at 60 mph, it shifted into 3rd gear for grade braking, which put the engine at almost 4000 rpm. Redline is indicated at 3200 rpm... I slowed it to 50 going downhill so I wasn't at 4 grand for 5 minutes.
Coming home late at night a few days later, same pass, but with the temp cool enough I was running without the a.c. I left the cruise on and pulled the pass at 65 mph at the summit!
color me impressed. Got to about 220° then, and cooled right off on the other side.
All in all, I'm very happy with how this truck handled the job. It even got pretty good economy doing it. The whole trip, all 418 miles of it at mostly 65-70 mph, it averaged 12.5 mpg. That's a full 4 mpg better than my old 2014 got pulling the Green Machine on a similar trip.
