Chicken > Egg... Egg > Chicken...
We just keep going round and round with this one. I sure wish someone would put this in a context of science in lieu of theoretical dialogue.
I suppose I am another statistic of one, being that my truck is running great since the EGR-ectomy and oil cooler replacement. Was it the EGR or was it the oil cooler that was causing ALL of my problems prior to this??? I dunno, but I do know that the EGR specific problems were terminated, and that is one less headache, whether it was the "root" of the other problems or not.
Another consideration is that injecting exhaust and carbon back into the intake of a diesel engine, especially since diesels are very close tolerance engines, just doesn't sound like a good prescription for engine longevity, but I digress...

 

Black, I WOULD CHANGE THAT OIL COOLER IMMEDIATELY ! ! ! If it were me... IMO, the oil cooler is very likely the cause of the egr cooler explosion, as a clogged oil cooler causes low coolant flow to the egr cooler and is probably why the egr cooler blew open, from overheating (from lack of coolant). The only question I have is whether the super heating of coolant going through the egr cooler is what caused the clogged oil cooler in the first place... But that is that chicken and egg thing that keeps me wondering.

 

As far as I know that's a rarity. Every other one that I have read, heard, or seen had something else to go along with it, typically, like I said the oil cooler.

If this system is as bad and you think the engineer should have something bad happen to them, why is it that I have survived over 200k, 64mm turbo, Stage I injectors, bigger fuel pump, putting down 508 HP at the rear wheels (all four of them) and still on the same cooler that the truck had when I got it with 15-20 miles on the odometer? Also with supposedly the worst built EGR coolers out there. The 03-04s are reported to have been built better.

Could bad crap had happen and you are one of the "lucky" few to just have the EGR and solely the EGR system crap out, sure. However, I just don't think my situation should even exist if I'm able to mod the truck like I had and no issues what so ever and trust me I'm not that lucky.

Lift kits can affect engine output depending on how extreme it is.

 

Think about it this way. How many people have gone in had the EGR fixed, then come back again to not only fix the egr, but also the oil cooler and then not come back?

Then, of course, you have the 3 people that I personally know that had EGR deletes. Oil cooler issues still, even without the EGR!!! Makes me wonder, if the EGR system went bye-bye, shouldn't they not have an oil cooler issue? 2 of them were clogged, the 3rd didn't bother with finding out why.

 

Tex, I forget if you may have mentioned this before, but are you using Ford Gold or ELC?

 

Gold is what I use.

 

Yarrrg.
I scratch my head...

 

guys I dont think the problem is the egr cooler either or the ford gold coolant

at least it wasnt on mine

when I cut that oil cooler up it looked alot like casting sand but not 100% certain
I have seen one oil cooler that looked like ford gold


check it out I bet if people cut there bad oil cooler open the majoirity would look like this


Ford Truck Enthusiasts Forums - BLADE35's Album: oil cooler - Picture

 

No question I am not a fan of the EGR idea. It's hard to accurately decribe how filthy my intake was when I pulled it, but suffice to say it was significantly loaded up. That's not the easiest stuff to clean out, nor does the design of the intake lend itself to thorough scrubbing, so I spent a day and several cans of cleaning products getting that thing clean.

I may do that anyway. I haven't done anything for the truck in awhile aside from some suspension bits, so a little maintenance couldn't hurt.

The EGR cooler split slowly. At first I'd lose coolant under load, to eventually get pretty constant, until one day Kablooey. It wasn't out of the blue and was far from sudden. It was a complete death though, I'll hand it that.

Could be a rarity. I dunno. I just drive it.

I can't explain yours, nor do I care to. Not my deal. You are incorrect about the EGR cooler though. Only '03 had the cylindrical "good" one. Mine was rectangular.

And the engineer deserves at least a kick in the pills for making a system that put my engine at risk of hydrolock when his system failed.

Lift is 4" and 35's. Nothing drastic. Put 46,585 miles on it between the lift and the EGR cooler failure, so if it was cause/effect it took awhile.

If you insist on me explaining what I think went wrong with the EGR cooler, I'll say it was made of the wrong material. It's 304 stainless. For the life of heat cycling it's made to expect it should be 321 or 347. Ok 347 would be overkill, but that's just my opinion.

 

Might be true, however, that really doesn't take away from the point that I was trying to make.

Always a risk of something with man made goods.

That's just it. Stuff like this does take time to go bad in some instances. When that happens sometimes people don't draw the correct conclusions. However, the weakest type of "evidence" there is is based off of time.

I did "a" observed "b", so therefore, "a" caused "b". Doesn't always follow, it may be true, but not based off of that. I could come up with some obsurd instances using that type of evidence.

 

Your statistic has the same value as mine. It's just one. Statistically speaking, nil.

I've got 183K on the original oil cooler. Never touched it. Every issue I had with the truck went away with the EGR cooler. According to current conventional wisdom that's impossible.

It's been interesting to watch the tide of "current conventional wisdom" over the years, BTW. Both in the 6.0 owning community and the general marketplace. A bit disappointing though when the owner of a 6.4 with literally 15X the trips to service that my truck has ever made tells me I'm the one with the junk motor. Ok....

No shortage of risk with these motors. Ruined a sterling reputation they did.

 

It's only because we don't know what the reconciling fact is that brings it all together.

Very much the strange truck. However, there are ones that buck the trends. Does that really mean though that because one bucks the trends that it is more then often the case?

Ironically the EGR system has been one of the subjects that has changing tides over the years. 1st believe to be the root cause, then oil cooler being plugged up, and now it seems like it's wanting to come full circle.


Owners didn't help either. Until we can seperate the frivolus claims from the legit ones(which we will never be able to do), it's going to actually be hard to tell if the engine is as much of a crapper is people think that it was.

 

Theres too many possible Failure senereos to ever be able to nail this down to one thing