The other day I discovered evidence of a minor coolant leak on my '04 6.0- visible as dried stains on the rubber hoses directly underneath the coolant overflow tank and also some slight stains on the driver's side exhaust manifold. After watching this for a few days, I am noticing a drip on the bottom of the overflow/degas bottle upon inspection after engine shutoff and I'm assuming the bottle has a crack in it. I am aware of the issues with the degas cap and there are no signs of fluid leaking from that.

My question is mainly asking if people are seeing cracked degas bottles out there. I just want to make sure that the coolant drips I am seeing are not being sprayed onto the bottom of the bottle from a leak somewhere else. I'm fairly certain it's the bottle but wanted some confirmation from the group here if possible. I'd like to get this fixed ASAP and don't want to buy something I don't need.

Thanks in advance for any insight offered!

 

Yes, it happens.

That is why you can buy new degas tanks for not that much money.

partsguyed.com will fix you up.

I would toss the cap at the same time.

 

Thanks for the reassurance and the advice. Do we know what is causing these to go bad? Are they poorly made? Are our performance mods causing issues with these? Just curious, as I typically don't see these failing on other vehicles very often unless there has been some kind of outside influence like an impact or something.

 

If the coolant was being sprayed you'd be able to see it clearly. If it was leaking from the top you'd see a little white trail running down.

The bottles do fail for one reason or another. Gives you an excuse to get a shiny new bottle and cap!

 

If you did any performance mods (e.g. anything to increase engine output), that is right there --- a good reason why the cooling system bottles can fail.

 

The majority of the plastic tanks on other vehicles are overflow only and not part of the pressurized system. Therefore they are not subject to the 16 psi ours can see. As to the mod question I will hesitantly say NO. The caps are designed to release at 16 psi. In other words unless the cap is not releasing the bottle should never see more pressure than it was designed for, modded or not.

 

69cj

I understand the caps are suppose to "release" at 16 psi.

When performance mods are done, we begin to deal with sizable changes in volume from coolant being drawn in at high RPMs, pressure, etc. and also cavitation bubbles being formed by coolant.

What this does is to subject the bottle to more than the normal stresses --- including pressurization / depressurization cycles.

The part is normally speced out to handle a certain number of these cycles --- with a whopping safety margin.

When you up the number of cycles, even if there was no excess pressure (with cap working properly --- another IF), you reduce its life.

Likewise, heavy towing (high underhood compartment heat), and cycles of heat / cool, etc. all take a toll on the life of the part.

Put all this together --- and it is not inconceivable that vehicles that do a lot of cycles (e.g. a grocery getter), or is modded (high rpm and heat / cold cycles and high underhood temps) subject the bottles to more stress.

In any case --- it is not an expensive part to chuck out.

 

No offense but is there any aspect of these trucks that you are not an expert at. You should ask one of the big 3 for a job. Then there would be no reason to even have a parts counter except for mods.

 

LOL cj

I am NOT an expert in any aspect of the truck.

I just happen to have access to a lot of not so easy to obtain information because of where I am.

 

Partsguyed.com has the reservoir tank for the F series at around $50 and the cap for $6.5

No reason to not buy new...