Hi, I am happy 7.3 PS owner, but my 10,000lb flatbed is quite often overkill for the jobs I am doing and I need back up vehicle anyway.
So I run into 2004 6-liter PS with just over 100k miles and black smoke and potentially coolant in the cylinders. I did rebuild few engines in my younger years, but am getting too old (read too lazy) to do full engine rebuild.
What are my chances the engine might be fixed with head repair only and what are potential costs?
I read the topic saying that all 6l heads have cracks, but it did not give dollar figures.

 

Do you know for sure it's got coolant in the cylinders? EGR cooler failures are some what common on the 6.0L since oil cooler clogging is an issue....and the truck will act like headgaskets/heads are blown/cracked. If it does have cracked heads...your looking at $1,000 to $1,500 a head plus $150 for a set of head gaskets. This is just my opinion, if you do (A) have cracked heads and nothing else and (B) decide to rebuild the truck....do yourself a favor and stay with OEM gaskets. They're dang near the best you can get for these engines. I'd look into replacing the TTY bolts with ARP head studs and for sure some form of "live data monitoring" to keep an eye on the coolant, oil & exhaust temps. The dash gauges are idiot lights.

 

Thanks. The coolant in the cylinders was diagnosed by a mechanic and the engine will not start now. The price is about 5 grands below the market value of running truck, so there is good margin for savings.
Any tips on quick test for EGR cooler failure?

 

Park on a decline nose down or jack up the rear and remove the egr valve to check for coolant in the intake.

 

Looks like somebody beat me to it. Thanks for the replies.

 

Keep us informed and you will get all the help you need to get a happy healthy 6.0