I guess that's about what mine would look like, I can't 'see' it. The camera would have been tilted right about 45° I guess The part of the valve with the lever on it points toward the front of the truck now, and that's what this one looks like as well. Mine used to be about 180° from this, where I had to reach over and behind the starter, that was worth a lot less, still better than removing the starter.

 

Thanks Idahoser, I looked at this pic too and am a little confused on the situation.

It's a little hard to tell perspective in the pic but I am thinking that my block drain is

rearward of freezeplug not forward like one in pic. It weems hard to imagine that

international would change casting mid run but if I am seeing perspective right then that

is situation. On my 06, the surface with the 12V label (a plastic snap in place cap)

faces forward and and is on forward most end of starter selenoid. I'll be under again

soon and look for similarities. It sure seems from memory that fumoto valve was about

in middle of selenoid cylinder (2 or 3" rearward of unit in pic)not just past end, which is

another reason it was difficult to reach open/close lever(not to mention mine is rotated

about 90 degrees further clockwise than one in pic). Thanks for help, will play with it

today when doing another distilled flush, and see if I can get better function out of it.

Also, I would like to invite any all power strokers out there to send me their coolant

cover(s) off of any old oil cooler(s) that they may have, I am going to start developing a

prototype quick connect reverse flush cover. Interested members can email me at

horsewspr@hotmail.com for particulars, I would be glad to pay shipping.

Thanks Again, and happy flushing,

Chris

 

any update? been 1 month since you last updated. wondering if you ever got the contaminates under control?

 

The EOT - ECT Δ was approaching 40° as we headed out from Memphis to KY the weekend before last.

This passed Thursday Oct 13th,
I reverse-flushed my oil cooler and heater core and dumped the lower radiator hose again before heading back to TX.
That's over a month and a half since my last reverse-flush procedure.

I'm back in TX now and the EOT - ECT Δ is back to around 15° @ ~75mph w ~80° ambient.

So...
I'm getting reliable results from this procedure
and I'm getting longer intervals of good performance between reverse-flushes.

 

I need a good 6.0 PSD mechanic in East Texas.
I'm in East Texas just south of Tyler. So obviously I'd prefer to find a good mechanic in East Texas. But if I have to drive or haul my truck further I guess I'll just have to figure that out. I'd like to find an independent mechanic in or near East Texas that knows the 6.0 very well. I'd like to make this fix the last of my problems with my engine.

I've learned more and gotten more help from this community than anywhere else and I'm confident this is the place to get a good recommendation for a mechanic. I chatted with cheezit and he said he knows a guy in Dallas, but he also warned that driving my truck is taking a chance. So I'm hoping to find someone closer than 2hrs drive.


Sorry I've been away so long. Life happened and it hit pretty hard....again.

Anyway, I'm back in the saddle and I'm trying to pick up where I left off. My truck has started making a funny noise especially around 1500rpm. It's hard to describe, kinda rattly grindy. Recently my EOT - ECT has started climbing from an average in the teens to an average in the twenties. This weekend is the first chance I've had to try for another back-flush. I went out yesterday to start the procedure and began by changing my coolant filter before warming the engine up. While I was warming the engine up I made a disturbing discovery: I dumped the contents of the old filter through a coffee filter to recycle the coolant solution and found greyish globs floating in it! So it looks like somewhere in the system oil is getting into the coolant and I know that the oil cooler is the usual suspect. I checked my oil dip stick and the oil appears to be normal. My degas bottle has been consistently puking this whole time so I expect that the heads have lifted(bolts stretched) and I suppose that could be the breach point. cheezit said he suspects the oil cooler as the breach point, but it's possible I may not have explained the full array of symptoms. Obviously I can no longer postpone the oil cooler replacement. I just hope I can afford to do the other stuff too: new head gaskets, arp studs, egr delete, hpop filter, hoses, etc (hopefully not hpop & head milling). I knew all along that this procedure was just buying me time, and I was hoping I could make it a few more months. But it is what it is, sometimes life is just rolling with the punches.

I'll gladly follow up to discuss the merits and limitations of this back-flushing procedure later, but for now I need to find a good mechanic to fix this engine once and for all. And I need to do it soon!

Thanks.

 

Jay sorrey to hear about this

How Low was the oil leval?????? Just reread it and you said it looked normal leval So thats a Good sign not to much oil is in the coolant system

I was going to post a link to the texas chapter but Looks like your already on it

Jay I wouldnt run it at all the more it runs the worse it will get since its making Pudding in there

Hope you will find someone close to you thats good with these 6.0

If you can save the bad oil cooler and cut it open Im curios to what it looks like inside with all the flushing that took place

This is still one of the best threads on oil cooler backflush you came up with some great Ideas here that will help folks out for shure

 

Well, maybe I jumped the gun here. Or did a chicken little routine, maybe the sky isn't falling.

I did another back-flush procedure today. I didn't see any of the grey globs. I only saw grey globs in the old coolant filter.

My oil level isn't low, in fact it's at the top of the cross-hash mark. And the oil looks like normal used oil.

I warmed the truck up, drove it till the thermostat opened.
Parked it and got my back-flush kit ready while the turbo cooled enough not to burn my hands.
I drained the block via Fumoto valves and tubes attached and I dumped the radiator at the lower hose.
I poured the radiator contents into the pan that I drained the block into and inspected to find no grey globs.
I proceeded to use my hand pump to cycle the drained and filtered coolant solution back-flushed into the oil cooler.
I felt no resistance while back-flushing the oil cooler, so it seems unlikely that there was enough pressure during engine operation to cause a breach between the oil and coolant plates.
I continued to back-flush the oil cooler till I didn't see much more stuff coming out of the block drains.
I pulled the lower radiator hose again to dump the contents quickly.
I then I back-flushed (reverse-flushed) the heater core.
Finally, I opened the block valves and cycled the coolant through the degas bottle to flush out whatever sediment may still be left in the block.
After all this flushing of a hot engine I found only two tiny little grey-tan globs. The oil seepage seems minimal, it's got to be something else.
I topped off the lost coolant and ran the engine to work out the air pockets. I took a drive about 10mi up Hwy 79 and back at about 65mph. Once the engine warmed up the EOT-ECT difference settled in around 10°(196°-186°). But usually more crap finds it's way to the oil cooler to give me about a 15° difference.
So I think I'm gonna keep driving it, but I'll refrain from passing the slow poke who's only doin' 65.

But I have to admit those globs I found in the old coolant filter are just enough to make me a little paranoid.
Funny thing about chatting with cheezit was when he told me that you can take two of the same regular production diesel engines that present the same problematic symptoms and find that they have different problems. I once read that someone referred to diesel engines like snowflakes: no two are alike. That's just damned frustrating when ya just want to identify the problem and get your truck right.

I still want to find a really good 6.0 mechanic. But since I think I can still drive that opens up the range a bit. So anywhere between Tyler and Memphis or Dallas, Austin, Houston, Nashville, etc.

And BLADE35, I have every intention of saving this oil cooler for inspection when it comes out.

 

Just remember - If you have an oil cooler failure, you really don't get coolant into the oil (or if you do, it would be VERY little and the oil cooler failure would be VERY noticeabe on the coolant side at that point). The oil pressure can easily be 75 psig - you can't simulate that by flushing on the coolant side (and it is the oil pressure that will push oil into the coolant, not coolant side plugging - coolant side plugging results in overheating of the oil cooler soldering, which initiates the failure).

cheezit is in Fort Worth area. I would take it to him.

Jack Powell Ford, Mineral Wells, Tx. 1-866-731-0738 1418 S E First Street Mineral Wells, Texas 76067

 

I'm building up materials and tools to do this myself. I'm in a suburb of Memphis. I will be replacing the oil cooler with an OEM and I already have that in hand, along with a STC kit.
Maybe working together we can get it done? I hesitate to make this offer because I'm very slow when it comes to getting to this sort of thing and I'd feel compelled to take a week of vacation to do my own so I'm not offering much in the way of physical help; but perhaps together we can come up with the tools, and we'd have the forum for knowledge. And when you were done, I'd already have the tools and more knowledge for my own to come.

 

Yeah, I was wondering about the coolant/oil pressure differential, whether it is always a condition where oil pressure is higher than coolant pressure. I've only had my ScanGauge since last April, but since then the highest the temperature reached was ~230°(and that was for a very short time till I could do a back-flush). Now after a week of driving 60mi daily round trips with good temperatures and checking my coolant filter to find no evidence of oil, I'm wondering if there's any other way that a small amount of oil can get into the coolant. I also looked in my degas bottle and found no evidence of oil.

I talked with cheezit. He's pretty busy these days. I'm hoping to avoid dealer overhead costs. I'm not just trying to be cheap, but money is an issue. And I'd like to be able to afford to do all the essential 6.0 upgrades whenever I dig into the engine. And between cheezit's HOA and his wife, side-work at home ain't happening.

I remember last Summer you saying you're in Bartlett. I really appreciate the offer but I can't forsee being able to make the time while I'm home to do anything with my truck. Currently my garage is full of stuff. We're getting ready to put the house on the market. I'll have alot to do in a short time to get the house ready to sell when I'm home. I also need to visit Mom while I'm home and do a few things around her house too. I like hanging out with friends and working on stuff in my garage, but these days I just desperately need my family under one roof. I think the wiser move for me right now is to pay someone who has experience to get everything done right at one time.
And sorry if it seemed like I abandoned my thread just as you were trying to figure out how to get your truck in order, I had just taken another of life's blindside punches that brought me to my knees. But I'm back now.

 

Oh, and here's how the truck is doing since the flush a week ago:

Ambient temperatures have been ~40° - ~60°, and driving about 65 to 70 mph on the highway, my average ECT is ~187° and the EOT usually settles in around ~200° once everything is warmed up.

The temps look pretty good, no evidence of oil in the coolant, but the degas bottle is still puking.

 

A new thread has started about possible bad degas bottle caps that don't hold pressure. No pressure in cooling system will allow a lower boiling point. Could this be your case? Are you sure your head gaskets are good?

 

I put a new degas cap on last summer after figuring out the basics of this back-flush procedure. I suspect I do have compromised headbolts/gaskets.

 

An other way to back flush the cooler is to remove the water pump. There is a dedicated supply circuit from the pump to the cooler. Be sure and plug up the big supply hole in the middle of the pump housing and the lower supply holes that go to the engine with some shop towels to prevent the crud from entering the engine.

Remove the cover under the turbo and place a 3/4 x 1/2 hose into the opening. I used a piece about 2.5 feet long and put a 3/4 ball valve on it and connected the hole thing to a water hose.

You will only be back flushing the oil cooler and the short supply channel in the block in this way. The coolant in the block will remain in place there by saving some dinero.

I flushed mine for about 6 hours this weekend, some times pulsing the flow by turning the ball valve off and on. I placed a kiddy wading pool that was about 3 feet in diameter and about 10 inched deep under the truck to catch the water. Here at the house we have 85 psi water pressure with copious amounts of volume. I did about 15 cold water flushes and 3 hot water flushes before putting things back together.

I took my time getting it ready to flush and it only took about 1.5 hours before I was ready to begin flushing.

I am working on and will build a hot water recirclating system so if and when I have to do it again, with the recirculating system I will be able to add chemicals to aid in clean the internals of the cooler and the short block passage but will leave the engine block alone and hopefully not break anything loose in it that would once again clog the cooler.

If you will remove the boost tube above the oil cooler you can actually remove both of the cap screws on the oil cooler cover with a quarter inch ratchet assembly. You will need a knuckle joint and about a 10 inch extension to get to the back one. To hold the star bit in the socket, I used a paper towel and wedged the star bit into the 1/4 in drive socket. Before removing the cap screws place paper towels all around the port so that if you drop something it will no get lost in the valley of the engine.

The passage in the front cover to the oil cooler will almost take a 3/4 x 1x2 piece of tubing. When I find the right size hose my plan is to run hose up into the housing for about 4 inched so it will seal really well. I will us a regular size beer keg with the very top of it cut out and run the return line to the top and drill a hole about 4 inches off the bottom for the suction line. I will place a high out put propane burner under the keg to supply the heat to warm the water so I can control the heat via a valve in the gas supply line.

I will find a 120 volt high pressure, high volume pump that will handle the heat and I will also add some kind of filter system in line so the contaminates that don't settle out in the beer keg will be trapped. If I get it right, i should be able to circulate the water chemical mixture for hours on end and if I plumb it right, I will be able to reverse the flow at will.

One could use the same set up with a little re-engineering to flush the whole system if you choose.

Just my .02

 

I did another backflush last Tuesday while back home in Memphis. EOT was getting a little over 220 at 75mph so it was time. I've since driven a straight 9 hours to Houston, then two days later back up to E TX, and so far my EOT is back under 210 at 75mph. ECT is maintaining right around 190.


Shooter, how are your temps after the procedure you did?