I'll have to look around. I can say I've doused myself with plenty of coolant while under the truck, and I can share what got me:


Radiator, coolant pump, thermostat, hoses to/from heater and engine block (into the heads), oil cooler, and the block heater next to the oil filter. Transmission fluid travels through some radiators, but not all.

 

Here is what I plan to do tomorrow. The truck is still spitting coolant from the t-stat housing, but only when it's been sitting. I put a new worm clamp on to replace the HF one which was stripped, the new clamp held for a day but that's it. I ordered a billet t-stat housing and will install it. I also believe I need to tighten my block plugs, looks like a small bead of coolant around the driver side plug. Will post back my finds tomorrow. Thanks again everyone.

 

Teflon tape seals up leaks for block plugs.

 

You may want to add some RTV to the billet T-stat or it may still leak. Had to do it to mine.

 

Installed housing and put in new tstat which had been tested, tightened block plugs about 1/8 a turn, but they seemed in there good. Drove 10 miles and checked hoses, still hard. Leg t it parked in the driveway overnight and this morning the coolant had spit from the lower recovery tank hose at the tank, and the wp inlet hose at the wp. Tstat housing held fine. Block plugs seem to show a bit more seepage (?).

I decide I'd try to "burp" the system so I drove it onto a steep driveway and hooded the throttle to 1800 rpm with the cap off. I see what appeared to be the bottle burping but when I glanced in the side view I see a cloud of whitish smoke. Also there was a small puddle of watery soot trickling down the driveway (didn't feel oily or smell like elc).

During the drive to work the smoking went away after about 1.5 miles. I am fearing the worst and have not built up the nerve to go out and look underneath the hood or engine since I got to work. I'll do another combustion gas test when I get home. Thanks again everyone for all the tips and advice. I might need more in the days to come.

 

Oil is coming from a hole on my muffler. Beginning to think this is a case of bad injector cup job or a loose injector (sounds familiar to someone...?) Valve covers getting pulled this weekend. I'm willing to bet its from the drivers side vc (fingers crossed).

If it is a loose injector or blown copper ring, do I need to worry about the oil which has passed through my exhuast? Cat maybe?

 

Removed the driver side vc and noticed a small amount of greyish sludge inside up around the doghouse. Didn't notice anything too unusual underneath while running, maybe more smoke than normal coming from the head but I don't have any solid comparison to what is a normal amount. Thinking about sending off an oil sample to blackstone and seeing if coolant is leaking in there.

 

I think an oil analysis is a good idea.

 

That analysis will tell you if the coolant is leaking out into the oil system when the engine is not running, since that is the only time that coolant pressure exceeds oil pressure. I mention this so that others who read this thread will be aware of this. When the engine is running, the leak goes the other way, oil into coolant, with the pressure increase from this leak bled off by the degas bottle cap, causing a loss of coolant when the engine is running. You must not be leaking combustion gases, since you did that test and there was no indication of gases in the coolant. I do not know if the combustion sensing kit would change color from a small amount of oil in the coolant. Apparently not, since you did not see a color change.
A cooling system pressure tester kit may or may not show a problem. The leak may only occur from oil to coolant. If the leak requires a higher pressure than the coolant system can deliver, only oil will leak into coolant and not the other way. So the oil sample to Blackstone may not show any coolant at this time unless the head gasket is leaking into the crankcase. I hope this makes sense. Larry

 

any indication on the oil dipstick?

 

The combustion gas tester only detects carbon dioxide, not hydrocarbons. I'm thinking that fuel would be in the oil, but since the oil pressure exceeds fuel pressure in the rails I don't see this is likely either.
I don't think anything is in the oil because I pulled a 16 oz sample from the pan and see no separation. I just feel that $25 is worth the piece of mind.
I was able to tighten 3 of the injectors on the drivers side with the front injector being the most loose, I probably had 2-3 full turns on it before it hit 120 ft lbs. After tightening and firing it up I heard a clack that I'm positive didn't exist before. I'm pulling the injector and checking the copper and orings. Blowby smoke (oil vapor?) was present, but not excessive and only seemed to be coming from near the pushrods on the front two cylinders. Could not see any blowby smoke from the rear two cylinders.
I'm thinking that the issues with oil in the exhuast pipe, smoke from the exhuast and coolant pressure are related, but I could be wrong.
Anything special I should do if only pulling the front driverside injector other than drain the oil rails ?

 

As you may have noticed when you looked through my threads, I had all the injectors out and did a pressure test on the coolant system (no coolant in engine). I then sprayed all the cups with silicone spray and watched for bubbles. Here are a couple of different trucks where that test was done:

 

Found something interesting today. Needed to do an oil change on the E350 so ran by Sally world to grab the MC 15w40. Filled my basket with 3 bottles and a filter and when checking out saw that I had 2 bottles of 10w30 and 1 15w40! The old location I went to only carried the heavier stuff so last time I changed my oil I didn't even notice that I put all 10w30 in my Ex. Could it be this lighter oil have gone by my rings, or at least more so than the 15w40? Its been in there for almost 1k miles, maybe the cause of oil out the exhuast and high coolant pressure are not related after all. I was having the coolant pressure problem long before the oil change. How much damage could using this oil have caused in 1k miles?

 

So I sat on this for a while since I purchased a VW TDI, but this weekend I had a little time on my hand and pulled the front driver side injector (#2 I think) and pumped up the system to about 10 PSI, which is as high as I could get it being that the tester had a small crack on it. Gonna go to HF or look online for my very own coolant pressure tester. I stuck a clean paper towel down in the cup and when I pulled it up I see a red spot. Good and bad news, bad news is cracked injector cup, good news is it is in the lower part of the injector cup and I believe the o-ring has held any appreciable amount of fuel out of the coolant.

Now time for a new hypothesis. What caused this new cup to crack on the copper part, and could this crack be what is causing my coolant pressure.

As I said before, this injector seemed awfully loose compared to the others, perhaps this caused the injector to vibrate more than normal and let to a the copper cup breaking more quickly.

I will know this week wether a small crack in the cup like this will cause overpressurization; the new cups and tool I purchased a year ago will be put to use and I just ordered a nifty rotary tool kit like Tugly has. I wish I had one of Clay's tools, it did remove and install a bunch easier than the one I have, but oh well. I'll also be sure to clean the threads on the coolant block plugs and use the teflon tape on them.

Once this is done I still plan on getting an oil analysis, after I switch back to 15w40 and run it on that for a while.

Thank again everyone. I'm gonna get this thing running for a good year some day.

 

Removed cup and found the bottom to be coked up pretty good. Waiting on some new loctite 620 (my old stuff was old) and I'll make sure to seat it nice and good. I do think I got a little bit of brass shavings in the cylinder, any idea of how worried I should be about that?