My '04 F250 6.0 has white smoke coming out of the exhaust and is using coolant. I have been reading a lot of threads on this condition but still not sure is it is a egr cooler or hg or something else for that matter. It smokes about half the time. No rime or reason as to when or what condition it will smoke. I pulled the EGR valve and look in the intake (the hole that the egr valve came out of) and it seemed damp. I started it up w/ erg valve out and liquid drizzled out of the 10 O'Clock position about half way down the neck of the erg hole. Front looking rear. I came back to see if I could find a thread on this and could not. This whole time it has ran fine with no lose of power or running ruff it just smoked. I tryed to start the truck again w/ the egr valve out and it smoked bad both out of the erg valve hole and the exhaust and for the first time it ran ruff. Any guess or things to try next would be appreciated.

 

Sounds like a cooler to me.

 

"I started it up w/ erg valve out and liquid drizzled out of the 10 O'Clock position about half way down the neck of the erg hole."

I noticed that the erg valve had two O rings and in it looked like the liquid (I assume is coolant) would be coming out between the two o rings. Is this normal?

 

If the cooler goes out, it puts coolant into the intake manifold. This sounds like your problem. If this isnt fixed, you run the risk of hydrolocking the motor.

 

Does the liquid look like coolant or thick oil?

 

Fx4Hauler How many miles on your 04? I have seen egr coolers go out as early as 30k.. From what you are telling us its most likley a cooler/not a hg.. Does you degas smell like exhaust? If so it could be head gaskets..

I have a 04 with 141k Its had 3 egr coolers in its life. I finally replaced the OIL cooler which was the cause of the multiple egr cooler failures.. If your egr valve is wet, then its you cooler 100% Here is a tip go ahead and block the sucker off while you have it out.. You can find freeze plug block off kits on ebay for $150..

 

It look like water. I've been putting water in it sence it started to use coolant.

 

Is the egas the bottle that you put coolant in. If it is I have not smelled it. I will do that tomorrow. It has 121,000 miles

 

Yes thats right, once you crank it let it run for 5-10min and look in the Degas ie.. coolant bottle and you should not smell any exhaust.. Im almost willing to bet that your Egr cooler has failed..

 

I'll check the Degas in the morning if no exhaust smell look at doing a delete or an upgrade.

 

This morning I ran the truck for 10 min. and checked the Degas bottle and no smell of exhaust. Now try to decide to do a upgrade or delete and to do it myself or have a mechanic install it.

 

fx4hauler what was the end result of your problem?

 

the cooler is definetly blown and thats why your losing coolant and seeing it in the intake. when the cooler blows the egr port of the intake will gum up and it's real sticky to the touch. the best thing to do is block off the cooler permently and remove that expensive valve for good. it sounds like alot but i do around 5-6 a week really. it can be done by you if your a do it yourselfer but i would recomend taking it to a shop like ours that does it on a regular basis.everyone has givin the 6.0 a bad rep but it's all due to the egr valve and cooler. when you remove and delete both you lower egts,increase fuel mileage,increase boost,power alot. it's not real expensive around $1100 parts labor everything. typically when a head gasket blows the coolant will boil out of the degas bottle and when the cooler goes it goes straight out the exhaust due to where the cooler connects to the turbo up pipes.

 

Another thing you could try is to unplug the EGR valve and see if coolant still comes out of the exhaust pipe. If it does not, I would vote for a bad cooler.

If you do change the EGR cooler, be sure to remove the oil cooler and back flush it or you will have still have EGR cooler problems later. That is easily done by connecting a water hose to the fitting where the EGR cooler connects to the oil cooler. The water flow should be unrestricted. When I did mine I used a small bucket and caught the water as it came out to see if there was any debris in the oil cooler. I had none. If their is a restriction, I would suggest you fill the coolant side of the oil cooler with a cooling system cleaner, let it set per the cleaner directions and then back flush it again to see if the flow is better. Repeat again if necessary.

Also, if you remove the oil cooler, be sure to replace the HPOP inlet filter screen located under the oil cooler.

DSMMH