I'm not sure what the torque value is on the bolts but I see why I can bend and leak by design. I put that bracket on my old 300k housing/neck and the leak stopped. I used the new oring and some silicone oring lube

 

I'm honestly thinking I'm getting excess pressure it only seems to do it when I get on it hard

 

If your cap was working you shouldn't be getting but like 15psi though

 

If you use regular ATV sealant with a new gasket it should seal good, I don't even let the sealant cure and have yet to see a leak. My truck defenatly has a blown gasket and my coolant gets pressurized quick and all my coolant goes put the Degas cap.

 

What with the degas cap just curious

 

"Technical" term for the coolant over flow bottle used on the 6.0 power strokes same concept as ours.

 

Yes I know what the degas bottle is but what are the symptoms of a blown headgasket because this is really concerning me now

 

And it's my only ride so I gotta figure this out

 

pressurized coolant tank is the first symptom I look for. Also a rock hard upper rad hose.

 

If you over tightened the new neck you may have warped it...

 

I was pretty careful about installing it but I'll double check and it did seem like once up to temp the radiator cap would release a lot of pressure off when removed more than normal and hose was tight to once it started leaking again

 

Make sure the cap hasn't failed. It should release pressure above 16 psi. If the cap is bad it will push gaskets out. Test your cap.

 

If you wanted to check and see if there is a blow head gasket I think and easiest way to do it would be to purchase a spare cap, or new cap and drill and tap it with a barb fitting, route that barb fitting with some tubing or hose into a glass filled with water. Once it's up to temperature there should be no bubbles being forced through that hose and bubbling up through the water. If there were bubbles that would indicate gas entering the cooling system which willl all be returned to the expansion tank eventually and vented through your hose

I have zero leaks on my powerstroke and my radiator hose doesn't get extremely hard, I doubt it should be anywhere near 15psi at temp because the air in the expansion tank acts as a bladder tank and compresses. So if say the cooling system is 10 gallons and the coolant expands 5% that's a half gallon of space taken up by expansion. There's say 1 gallon of air space in the expansion tank. That compresses to a 1/2 gallon of air and compressing air to half then your tank pressure would be 2 atmospheres or around 14.6 psi i believe. I think the expansion of 50% ethylene is less than 1% figuring in a 200 degree change in temperature from hot to cold. So the pressure should be very low.

On the idi engines there is no expansion tank, they get rock hard because the coolant expands, doesn't compress because it's a liquid so it meets the 13psi cap pressure then goes into the overflow tank. When it it cools coolant contracts and sucks back through the radiator cap.

 

Will this bolt on my 97 ?


Powerstroke 7.3 TP38 66mm Billet Upgrade Turbo F250 F350 94-97 | eBay

 

says it will in the ad