For background purposes, I bought this truck about 6 months ago. Lots of things to fix just to make it safe, but now onto the motor. See the pic of the degas bottle. I'm trying to determine if it's just long term neglect (very possible with this truck), or if I have a leak somewhere that is letting either diesel or exhaust into the coolant.
When I open the cap and look inside, the coolant level is a little low. The coolant looks OK. I don't see an oil slick on top. Also when I stick my snoot in there and take a big snort, it smells like coolant. Coolant itself appears OK, but the degas bottle is nasty.
I figure there are a few options:
1. Neglect. It's just rust. Flush, change hoses, new degas bottle, good to go.
2. Former leak. Same fix as #1.
3. Current leak. Probably requires at least fuel injector cups??? plus other stuff.

Is there any way, without disassembly that I can figure out if something is leaking into the coolant? Can I have the coolant tested somewhere? I haven't been able to locate a test facility that says they do coolant. I will collect an oil sample this week and send it off, can I do the same with coolant?

BTW, that's green coolant

 

Many radiator shops can test for combustion gasses in the coolant. There are also kits to test for it.

Here's one. http://www.amazon.com/UVIEW-560000-Combustion-Leak-Tester/dp/B000NPDL76

 

Thanks, I may pick one of those up tomorrow and see what's going on.

 

You can get one from a Caterpillar dealer.

 

pull your tank off and wash it out with dawn dishsoap then reinstall it could be dirty from a previous repair.

 

I wound up ordering the tester, so it should be here today or tomorrow.

If it tests out OK, my plan is to wait for spring then replace all the rubber hoses and degas bottle. Trying to decide if I want to get a coolant filter to keep it clean from now on.

If it tests bad, don't quite know what I'll do. I'm already tired of working on the damn thing in the cold.

 

Well, big shocker, my POS failed. Has combustion gasses in the coolant system.

Anyone want a neglected 7.3 that has a good start on getting fixed up? I just don't have time for this these days. Alternatively, anyone know a decent Diesel mechanic in the DC, Baltimore, Richmond area?

Hopefully it's just a injector cup, but my luck with this thing so far ...

 

I use XLR8 Diesel in Woodsboro, MD. It is a 1.5hr for me to get there, but so far well worth the drive compared to the other places around me in Gettysburg.

 

I took it to a local diesel shop (Hollyrock). He just finished looking at it. He said compression is good and everything looked good on the motor, all the cylinders are working properly and everything tested good.
The problem appears to be rust. Specifically from the radiator. He flushed the motor and it cleared out quick, but the radiator took a lot of flushing before it cleared out. He suggests I watch it for leaks and maybe reflush and/or replace it in the spring. Once he was done he ran it for a while and didn't see any compression gasses in the system.

 

Good to hear man!

 

When I picked it up he gave me some more info of what he did and I feel a little more comfortable that things are good. He seems to know his stuff. He may also have tightened something that was leaking as the turbo felt more responsive than it had. But, he didn't say anything.
The best news was that the cost was one zero less than I had expected going in.

Hopefully I can get a few months of just driving it in before I do much else. It needs to get off the top of my spending list for a while so I can get into race season.