AWESOME! Thank you for sharing a true test of the product. I know EXACTLY where you were and know the hills are brutal! Thank you for the video.

Unfortunately....I CAN overheat my truck on LONG pulls with my 37' 5th wheel up long pulls and it puts my stomach in a twist to have to let off as I monitor all parameters. RARELY does the OEM gauge creep up to 3/4 but when it starts to it is time to let off and hopefully wait for my cooler to play catch up. I frankly am tired of that $h*t and ready to move on.

********BTW do you live in Socal and did you buy the cold weather package?

Thanks again

Joe

 

no cold weather package... the cooler has a t stat bypass built into it,
is this what you are referring to? vans, btw, have less airflow with the
bumper and grill arrangement than the F series. i believe all of the
coolers have a 180 t stat in them.

i'm in huntington beach, so yes, socal... i was driving my work van up to
troy meadows, with a box trailer behind... bought a new race bike, and
was going up for a few days before grinding back into work..... first new
off road bike, and first time back up to kennedy meadows in 32 years.
i have a new non diesel toy to play with.... wheeee.....!!!! 2014 Beta 520.

the only time the OEM guage will move is after you slag the turbo down.
if you don't have some decent readings on the engine, you will have a
passle of trouble down the road. i use a dashdaq, but there are lots of
cheaper solutions that will work just as well... i put a brake controller
in that runs off the abs signal from the obdII port, and figured i could use
a splitter, and run both of them, but no go.... so i used the gauges
going up, and the brake controller going down......

the brake controller is pretty cool, so i'm gonna try and find a way to
run both of them... it'll also interlink with a ABS and anti sway hydraulic
unit made by them that goes in the trailer... i don't need anything that
spiffy at this time, but you never know.....

 

I have replaced 3 coolers in less than 2 years on my 04 F350 and besides my time and money wasted, it's knowing you are going to have to change the cooler again. It's just a matter of when. BPD kits are expensive, but the 3 coolers plus labor was expensive too. Plus not having my truck when I needed it was worse.

 

That would be called you should have done a proper flush and also either had the radiator boiled out or replaced as THAT is likely the cause for further plugged oil coolers.

It isn't rocket science after-all.

Josh

 

Radiator was checked and PROPER flush was done too. Your comment about it not being rocket science is why people get pissed off about putting info on this site.

 

Not really,

People get pizzed off when they're personally attacked. I'm not saying you're necessarily doing it now but sometimes the threads go in that direction and they don't help anyone.

I think that might be a bit of an exaggeration isn't it?

The best price I found for oil coolers was about $300.

If you were having it done, I would bet you couldn't get an oil cooler replacement for less than $1500 labor + the $300 + gaskets coolant, oil change etc.......... maybe $2000 in round numbers?? wouldn't 10 of those be $20,000? .......


If I remember correctly, the BPD "KIT" is about $2000 + labor (if you have it done)

EDIT: Just came from their site and it appears that the "Kit" which includes the T-stat PLUS a new BPD EGR cooler is $2295 + shipping ($150 less without the Vernitherm [T-stat])

If I was going to change my own oil cooler at approx $300 and replace the EGR cooler (you wouldn't pull all that stuff off and NOT change the EGR cooler would you?

That would be approx $300 for the oil cooler and another $350+ for the EGR cooler.

Now if you replaced the EGR cooler with an updated one or a BPD one, you'd still spend the money (presumably once)

So, the entire job, oil and EGR cooler would be $300 + $350 + another maybe $200 for gaskets, coolant, zillion gallons of distilled water, oil, filter and incidentals? $850 or so?

AND then, later, when the oil cooler plugs again, another $850 MINUS $350 (no new EGR cooler since you wouldn't have to replace it) So $550

So, let's recap shall we? Changing the oil cooler twice has cost $850 + $550 = $1400. NOT counting any labor because you did it yourself!

do it 3 times, and you're basically there!....................... PAY SOMEONE 3 times and you're WAY THERE!


Now, I am not suggesting that everybody would do it 3 times. I only want to do it ONCE!!

But if I'm pulling it apart once, I do not want to have to do it again.

I have a truck that I bought with 26,000 miles on it. It's up to 30,000 miles now and I need to do a drain and fill on the cooling system.

I DO NOT want to have to screw with the oil cooler............. I also don't want to have to worry about it plugging up on a trip where I am at the mercy of some dealer or worse when it does plug and I have BIG deltas.

SO, I think I am going to plunk the $2295 down and get the kit and included EGR cooler.

I'll do it myself this winter at my leisure and clean up my VGT while I'm at it!


Cheers,



Rick

 

Wow can we all play nice?!

 

Rot roh, Someones in trroouubbllee...........But something wasn't done right on the coolant flushes to make those coolers cog up that much. Did you have a coolant filter on it? I'm very curious, I'm getting intermittent deltas when it got warm this summer and now they are back to normal since it cooled down

 

I'm putting the BPD kit on now. I checked 3 different garages and all was around $1100.00 for install. One of the garages was a certified installer of this product and there price was same.

 

Why don't you just check your temp spread first?

At that point, if the OC needs replaced, do it then. Oil Coolers plugging up dont happen overnight so why would a problem just jump out like that on a road trip?

I agree, with a proper flush, a new OC won't plug. If you had to replace 3, I'd start looking at another place in the system causing the problem.

 

Actually right this minute, my temp spreads are pretty much OK.

I only had my last diesel powered 1994 Suburban (which I sold in JULY of this year) since I Bought it NEW. Let's see........20 years. It only had about 210,000 on it.

I never had to flush the cooling system because it might plug something and cause self destruction.....


I'd like to prevent this in my F350 in the future without having to do the equivalent of a special mineral water colonic every couple of years......

So taking the component out of the picture that would prevent this seems logical.


Well, I think I am.....I am not attacking anyone..... I just want to present the facts and suggest that exaggeration doesn't help matters.


The 6.0L engine (and it's unique cooling system problems) has been around long enough for US to now know what causes the problems. BPD and a couple of others have come up with the rather not-so-unique fix of eliminating the poorly designed oil/EGR cooling system problem.

Maybe it would have been better to have a completely independent cooling system JUST for the oil and EGR cooler or maybe flow the coolant in the other direction [EGR-first] etc................

But we cannot redesign the engine (You KNOW, Ford only settled their lawsuit with Navistar only last OCT) We could argue the design until we're "blue in the face"

We could also argue what brand or mix of coolant to use and what "secret sauce" additives to buy and whether one should buy an aftermarket {Dorman etc} oil cooler to use etc etc etc......

BUT ALL THE STUFF ABOVE HAS BEEN ARGUED ON JUST ABOUT EVERY POWER STROKE FORUM ON THE NET!
(and people are STILL arguing it!) It never stops. It's like an oil thread on iBoats! (or anywhere else for that matter.....)


But those that have that BPD cooler just put fuel in their trucks, change their oil on a regular schedule, and they don't really worry about scanguages, temp-deltas, coolant flushes or special CAT EC-1 coolant (like the case I just bought from NAPA)

They just drive their trucks like I drove my Suburban for 20 years! Which I was sorry to see go btw!So my plan is to indeed do a coolant flush so I can get that lousy Ford Gold coolant out of my engine and switch to a decent coolant. (Like Cat EC-1 type)

But at the same time, I'm going to "fix" this thing once and for all.....


Sorry for the long rant.....


Rick

 

If that is true, why are some owners having to re-tune the truck to activate the fan at lower temps and BPD now offers an adapter to install a 7.3 fan that is always engaged. This all points to not enough air flow for the added cooler. My concern with the BPD kit is not getting the oil warm enough in cold weather. Sometimes the "cure" causes worse issues than the initial problem.

If my truck had 30,000 miles on it with good temps I'd leave it alone.

 

I don't have a BPD anything in my truck and I do the same... No worries here.

 

Rick,
I tend to think the factory oil cooler is adequate to remove the heat from the oil and simply requires a clean cooling system to keep it from clogging. I went the other way and put my hopes in a factory oil cooler and the upgraded EGR cooler. Time will tell I guess. I follow your assertion that the BDP system eliminates the issue but for me the price was a bit steep for an oil cooling system.

Mostly I wanted to say thanks for the posts. I enjoyed reading them, and good luck with the truck!

 

And, of course, the OP (Joe) wanted opinions good and bad, pro and con.

I think we gave him exactly what he wanted.....