When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
ok i got my 1988 4wd here wich has a 7.3 5spd, the truck has 180k on it but the coolant looks like new in it. odviusly it was taken care of and changed regularly.
now i also have a 2wd with a 7.3 that has 136k on it and i was thinking of swapping the lower miles engine into my 4x4 but the coolant in that engine is nasty bad, and ive heard that these have head gasket problems where they will start to leak coolant into the combustion chambers. does anyone now if the shot old coolant may chew up the headgaskets or was that just a fish story.
they dont have head gasket problems...... they have cavitation problems. if the engine has cavitation that means that the coolant has eaten its way though the cylinder wall and gotten into the combustion chamber. depending on where the holes are it will ruin your oil, but my guess its none of those issues. if i were you, id remove the oil cooler on the drivers side under the exhaust manifold..... then replace the 4 O rings inside it. they are a ford/international item only! that is usualy the reason you get oil in the coolant and/or coolant in the oil. easy fix, just takes a little time to do. $50 in O rings and 2 new gaskets and your good to go.
do a search on "sca" on our forum as well. you need to regularly test your coolant with test strips and adjust the levels as needed or you will cause irreversible damage to your engine
no i have no coolant in the oil, i was just woried that maybe the coolant has checwed up the block since it is so nasty in the lower miles engine. is there a way to prevent cavitation, id hate to swap the engines and have it cavitate 6 months later... thanks
nasty looking coolant means nothing, its all about the "sca" levels in it. and yes you can prevent it by either keeping your sca's in check or running a elc (extended life coolant)
ok, im new to the sca thing, did a quick search and got confused. this is my first diesal and ive never delt with sca levels before.. what is the sca's and where do i get the aditive to keep them in chack. also should i run both elc coolanat plus the sca additive or just one or the other.. thanks
In a nut shell flush the cooling system. And get fleetcharge coolant and mix with distilled water. The fleet charge should have the sca's in it. The sca protects the cylinder walls from the little coolant bubbles that form as the cylinder wall flexes slightly, by creating a thin film between the coolant and the lock. If you can't find fleetcharge get low silicate coolant and get some fleetguard DCA-4 additive. Napa should sell the coolant test strips,at every oil change pop the cap off the rad dip the strip and read it. the bottle they are in has all the charts to read it. If that doesn't help i will go slam my haed in my door and see if that makes you feel better
well after reading thru a bunch of old treads i'm geussing i'll do exactly that and change out the coolant in the truck and probly leave the higher miles engine in it. one thing that worries me now thou is the nice clean green coolant in my 4wd.. i wonder if they were running sca additive or not, i geuss it's just a crap shoot. but i wish i had a good idea since im going to drop a mess of money in it soon replacing the IP, feul lines and glow plug controller..
ok, glad to here that. woulda never thought that cavitaion was such a big problem. do the psd's have the same problem, cause my altimate plan for the truck was to either build a rurbo idi or swap in a psd..
Nope and its only the 7.3idi's. The 7.3 is a 6.9 block bored 110 over. the walls get pretty thin. The psd blocks were originally designed to run that specific bore so the walls are thicker.