OK, I read and read, until my eyes are crossed. Did a search but unsure if what I found is correct.
Here's the question:
What is the trigger point for engine oil temp and engine coolant temp spread, where one should change their oil/egr coolers? What is the spread to give concern that the oil cooler is on its way out?
What I think I found in my search is <15 degrees difference in EOT and ECT is acceptable, but more than that is bad ju ju. Is this correct? Please straighten me out on this.

Thanks, Tim

 

15 degrees or more and it's time to change it according to ford. Me, personally if I were running 13-14 spread on a regular basis I would go ahead and change it to avoid being stuck somewhere broke down.

 

My understanding is that a consistant >15 degree spread indicates trouble. Also if you have the updated flash your truck will go into limp mode if the >15 degree spread is maintained for too long. EO cooler replacement should be the only thing needed if your problem with >15 degree spread is just becoming a problem. The lack of cooling from the EO cooler is what makes the egr cooler go bad. There are times when towing that you may see >15 degree spread temporarily, but it should only be short lived.

 

Tim
This should give you a good understanding why the 6.0 has problems.


This is very important information check link at bottom



Quote:
Originally Posted by Gwar
Does the lack of silicate have any adverse affects??? Not to ask a dumb question but why would ford continue to use a coolant that causes serious issues with its engines???

Does the 6.0L come from the factory with the ford gold or something from international???

(QUOTE) Posted by PGreenSVT at Powerstroke.org
Can't explain away Ford's logic. International uses Fleetrite ELC. Think about it. Whats is another silicate? Sand immediately come to mind. What is sand? It's an abrasive. Besides that it turns to a gell from the heat as it goes through the egr cooler trying to carry off the heat from high egt's resulting in the sludge that clogs the oil cooler. There is a substanial body of evidence supporting this.

Not having silicates is a positive thing. It has no adverse affects. ELC coolant is good for 300k miles without any additives and extendable to 600k with an additive pack at 300k. The new Delo ELC is good for 750k miles or 8 years extendable to 1 million miles.

I think it pretty much speaks for itself.
__________________
I'm on a campaign man. That Gold cxxp is killing our trucks and people need to know. It is the cause of the biggest problems we have with the 6.0 and the bad reputation the 6.0 has. And it is pretty cheap and easy to eliminate. People should know this. So yeah, I'm beating that drum. The other drum is the need to monitor ECT and EOT before you blow your egr cooler and head gaskets.

I just did a flush with Fleetrite Restore, VC9, lots of flushing, installed a coolant filter, and switched to ELC. Im curious to see what my coolant filter will look like after the first 500 miles, I know there is still most likely some cxxp in there still as I still have the stock EGR and oil cooler at 34k miles but I doubt there will be anywhere the abount that we see out of most of the posts with opened up coolant filters.

I recently installed the DieselSite.com coolant filter kit on my 2006 6.0. The kit came complete with everything you need and also came with the new billet aluminum filter head, looks really sharp.

PGreenSVT, dude you need to change your screen name to "ELC FOR LIFE!"

But I agree I just switched to ELC also, either way it cant be any worse than the gold, for those of you that have doubts just scrape the bottom of your degas bottle, thats the same cxxp thats clogging your oil cooler. When I did my flush I pulled my degas bottle and scrubbed it with a bottle brush, that cxxp is like glue.
also read this
(QUOTE) Posted by PGreenSVT Powerstroke.org
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Here is the deal with the 6.0. Any good tuner (person writing your tunes) is not going to give you a tune that is going to tear up your truck. There are trucks all over the place running 400-420 rwhp with 750-800 rwtq all day long without problems.

Yes the 6.0 is known to blow head gaskets. This is why it happens. The Ford Gold coolant contains silicates. The silicates are not able to handle high EGT's generated by a good load or relatively high boost when run through the EGR cooler. They break down into a jell like sludge and fall out of suspension. This crud gets caught up in the tiny coolant passageways of the oil cooler. As the cooler clogs up it restricts coolant flow to the egr cooler. Now the egr cooler doesn't have enough coolant to carry off the heat generated by high EGT's. The limited amount of coolant in the egr cooler flash boils causing high pressure in the cooling system and the truck pukes coolant from the degas bottle due to the pressure. (it has to go somewhere)
Your uninformed Powerstroke owner is not monitoring his coolant temps and oil temps so he doesn't know whats going on and he keeps driving it this way. The problem get worse, the pressure causes the egr cooler to rupture. Now the egr cooler is leaking coolant into the intake manifold which then runs into the cylinders. Again the high combustion temps cause the coolant to vaporize. This causes unacceptably high cylinder pressure, the TTY head bolts stretch due to the additional pressure and there go your head gaskets.

Ok now you know the problem. Here's the cure. Get a good engine monitoring solution like the Edge Insight so that you can monitor your ECT and EOT. If those temps get more than 15* apart at normal cruising when at normal operating temperature your oil cooler is clogging up. Rebuild it now to prevent all that down stream damage from occurring. Flush that Ford Gold coolant cxxp out of your engine with a couple bottles of Restore. This is made specifically to clean out that silicate residue. Now refill it with a silicate free Cat EC-1 rated ELC coolant. This removes the silicates that clog the oil cooler from the equation. If you live in an area where you don't have smog inspections delete the egr system. If you can't delete it replace the egr cooler with the cooler manufactured by Bulletproof Diesel. This is vastly superior to the Ford oem egr cooler and it will not fail on you. If you find that you need to replace head gaskets replace the TTY head bolts with ARP studs and use black onyx (Victor Reinz) head gaskets. If you have to replace the egr cooler always replace the oil cooler. That is the source of the problem.

Now that you have addressed the common problems that scare the hell out of people, get an SCT tuner (i like the X3) and install some custom tunes and drive the heck out of it. DO NOT baby it. The Powerstroke hates this and will rebel with turbo issues.

Turbo issues are also common repair points with the 6.0. People like to complain that it's because the VGT turbos are pieces of junk. This is not so. The VGT vanes in the turbo need to be exercised regularly. This means making them go through there full range of motion. So put your foot in it regularly and let is see some full boost runs. That will keep your VGT vanes from getting all sooted up and freezing up because of the soot. Again, that is what happens when you baby it. Put you foot in it and you will have less problems. Lay out of it and try to milk it for mileage like you would a gasser and you're going to have turbo issues. Don't let it sit either. That is also the kiss of death to the turbo. The unison ring rusts up and again you have turbo problems. So now that you know you need to give your turbo a regular work out to keep it happy, give it a proper cool down as well. Just whipping into your parking place and shutting it down will lead to coking the bearings and again major turbo issues. Running a good synthetic oil will help here immensely because it handles heat so much better and resists coking. But always let your turbo have time to cool down. This is one of the reasons you need a Pyrometer (EGT gauge), Let the EGT come down to 350* before shutting your truck off. This only takes a couple of minutes, especially if you take it easy on it for the last couple minutes of your trip. If this is too much hassle for you get a turbo timer that will automatically delay shutdown when you turn off the key to allow the turbo to cool down.

Injectors. Fords injection system HEUI fires the injectors with High Pressure Oil, to the tune of 4,000psi at Wide Open Throttle. Maintenance is critical here so you can not let your oil maintenance slide like you can on a gasser. It will kill your injectors. The injectors also are known to suffer from something that we call stiction. That is when the oil side spool valve of the injects hangs up or sticks when cold until the truck warms up. I believe this is caused by varnish buildup that is common to dino oils, especially those containing paraffin. Using a good synthetic oil will take care of that because it actually cleans the engine as it lubricates. If you do find yourself with some injector stiction add a couple of bottles of Rev-X to your oil. It has cleared up 99.9% of the trucks it has been used on. 2 bottles run around $70. A new injector is about $250-$290. Be **** about keeping your oil clean and fresh and changing your fuel filters regularly. The other thing that kills injectors is low fuel pressure. The fuel pressure needs to stay above 45psi at all times and is typically set around 52 psi from the factory. Well the Factory fuel pressure regulator spring is weak and looses it's tension over time and can't maintain adequate fuel pressure. There is an updated rebuild kit that uses a better, stronger spring. Installing this spring will bring your fuel pressure up to about 62 psi and solve that. Get a fuel pressure gauge. It's important.

So that covers the frequent complaints with the 6.0. They are all well known at this point as are the solutions. Does it suck we have to fix Ford's blunders? Heck yes it does. But again we know how and once done you will have a very reliable robust truck that is well worth the effort. So address the issues as you can and enjoy your truck. It is a dynamite vehicle. I love mine.

If you like pictures have a look here.

http://www.powerstroke.org/forum/6-0-motor-problems/149749-replaced-oil-cooler-still-difference-temps-21.html#post2063212
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Thanks guys, for the helpful replies. Great stuff.

Dieselpop, special thanks to you for that link! This makes me feel much better about some theories I had about oil cooler failures, and also straightened out some of my misconceptions.

 

No problem, if you think you need to flush try this one works well just remember there is alway the chance you could have things go down hill if your temp spread is to great or over 10* doing 60mph freeway cruise set on flat ground then take your readings, just be ready for new coolers.
Add this to help in the drains
QuickOilDrainValve.com - the best way to change oil
as posted by jfirstford here works great
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...-advice-3.html
Flushing and cleaning the 6.0

Restore is for cleaning out any silicate goo. VC-9 is for cleaning out iron and scale. Restore Plus is the same as VC-9 and cheaper.

To flush drain the coolant by removing the lower radiator hose from the radiator, and removing the drain plug from the driver side of the block. There is a drain plug on the passenger side also but you have to remove the starter to get to it. I don't bother with that one.
I also highly recommend you pull the thermostat out on your first drain and put the housing back without the thermostat. It only takes about 10 minutes and will save you 2.5 hrs or so in doing this whole procedure.

Ok now put the lower hose back on and the drain plug back in the block if you removed it. This is the procedure you will use each time to drain the system, except you will not touch the thermostat again until you're finished the whole procedure. Make sure that you set your heater to high while doing this to flush out the heater core as well.

Fill the cooling system with distilled water, start the truck and let the water circulate for 5 minutes. (if you did not remove the thermostat you must run the truck until the thermostat opens + 5 minutes to circulate. This takes 15 to 20 minutes each cycle and is why you should just remove the thermostat) Stop the engine. Drain the system and repeat the flush.

Now add at least 1/2 gallon of Restore and fill with distilled water. I used cardboard in front of the radiator because you have to get to 185* 190* for these products to work. Drive truck or run on high idle for 60-90 minutes just before you get back from your drive remove the cardboard this will help in the cool down same on the Restore+ flush. Drain and flush 3 or 4 times. or tell clean

Add 2qts VC-9 or 1/2gal of Restore Plus, top with distilled water, add cardboard and drive the truck or run on high idle for 60-90 minutes then remove cardboard. Now drain and flush until flush water comes out clear and clean. When you get clean flush water, flush 3 more times using distilled water while draining the block.

After your final distilled water drain it is time to put the thermostat back in. I recommend you install a new thermostat at this point. They are only $20 or so and it is good maintenance procedure to do so. Fill with 3.5 or 4 gals of ELC concentrated coolant and top off with distilled water. Drive the truck or let run for a while topping off with distilled water. Check the truck over the next few days and top up as required while any air left in the system works its way out.

Keep some 50/50 ELC on hand to use to top off the cooling system from here out and you are good to go.

new t/stat from Ford it should all come together (housing-t/stat-o-ring) in a box. The part number is RT-1169

Here is the Restore Product from Cummins dealer
http://www.fleetguard.com/pdfs/produ...LI33024-GB.pdf
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Not trying to trivialize the situation or to "call people out", but why do some people not have issues w/ the Gold coolant. I am at 90k and I have no issues with it. Many others are experience the same results.

There is more to it than "The Gold coolant is bad period".

It does appear that the ELC does not plug, but clearly the Gold stuff works for some folks and in some situations. With that in mind the question becomes "Is it the coolant that should be changed or thise OTHER situations that should be discovered and changed?"!!

Some people may not care about the root cause(s) and just change the coolant out. As for me, I would like to know the real root cause(s) and to have the explanations be consistent with the entire body of evidence.

BTW - Ford's TSB states 15*F delta, but after the coolant reaches the 190 degree mark AND going 65 mph (IIRC). They also say that it is a guideline and that it is not a black and white line that will cause issues the moment you cross it. That being said, the consequences are significant, so better safe than sorry!

 

Mark
I read everything you post and i'm with you 100% the Ford Gold will work as long as you stay on top of it change it out in 50k and 30k if you pull heavy, i think 14k is heavy so i'm in that boat the coolant can't take the heat. If you use your truck as a grocery getter and it never works hard i think it will work fine you may have other problem like egr or turbo problems. All i read about are egr and oil coolers,high temps,puking coolant,HG,wrench light on, lot of it is caused by the lack of a coolant filter to remove the casting sand, i think this is where it starts because some truck have O casting sand and some have the kids sand box in them then you add high heat silicates that drop out, you have a problem.
I may be all wet but i installed a coolant filter at 17k remove all the casting sand then did my flush at 30k so that was about 12k to filter the Gold then i flushed when i dropped the first restore flush it came out like a White Honey Goo this is after 2 distilled water flushes to remove all of the Gold and i had O casting sand in the drains. Yes i used a lot of water 48 gallons my restore+ came out clean. This is just my view of the problem.
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