Today I was looking at my temps while I was driving and noticed a spread of 18-25 on my ECT and EOT. I am driving from Texas to Pennsylvania here in 40 days and was thinking about changing oil cooler before I head out.

My first question, How hard is it to change out an oil cooler, do I need to remove intake manifold?

Second, What could happen if I am not able to get to changing it out and have to drive with it the way it is?

I just had HPO system changed out and egr cooler replaced. Truck has 106700 miles on it and is the truck in my sig.

 

Is the variance HOTTER than the coolant temps?

To R&R the oil cooler is not that difficult, but requires disassembly of the top. I removed the intake to do a full EGR delete and found it very easy access the oil cooler.

 

I had close to 15 degF with EOT the highest, I did a flush with the VC9 new Gold coolant from Ford and installed Coolant filter and now it's in the 7 to 8 range..change was immediate.

 

Oil cooler should always be changed when the egr cooler is changed. 95% chance a plugged oil cooler took out the egr cooler.

 

It was the EOT being the highest..Also I had ford fix my truck last time and at that point I had no idea about these trucks but have learned more and didnt know that about the link with egr cooler and oil cooler so I didnt bother asking about condition of oil cooler.

 

Before catching onto the fact that restricted oil coolers were the root cause of EGR cooler failures, I too was only replacing the EGR cooler by itself back when these trucks were still under warranty. Ever since then, I ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS replace BOTH coolers and have NEVER had a repeat EGR cooler on any truck I've worked on so far, which makes me question the "need" to have the EGR system deleted that I read about so many members jumping the gun and doing, before there is even an issue with them to begin with.

 

I agree 100%. A healthy cooling system equals healthy coolers. Deleting the egr cooler is deleting the symptom not the cause.

 

Absolutely 100% agree w/ you and 69cj!

 

True, but isn't it proven to be more economical (better mpg), etc, to do away with the entire EGR system? I agree that the EGR cooler got a bad rap, and there was never anything technically wrong with the design, but if you're already in there replacing the oil cooler, why not just ditch the EGR (assuming you don't have to smog test)?

 

You really do need a tuner to properly account for the lack of exhaust gas recirculation. However, if you have a proper tune, I will agree with you. If not, then it will not be more economical (at least IMHO).

 

I was thinking about that after I posted. You definitely need a tuner to keep the CEL off (on '04 and up, I believe).

I'll be keeping mine stock until something blows up... after that, I'll have to decide if I want to just replace the cooler and run stock, or delete it and add a tune. With as good as the truck runs stock, I'd be hard pressed to add a tune (additional money up front) and then be worried about causing more problems down the road (additional money down the road).

 

Ok so since I replaced my egr cooler in the last month and they didn't put a new oil cooler in I will probably run into this problem again. Also if I can't get to changing out this oil cooler before my journey home am I going to destroy anything? I have a spread of highest around 25 degree hotter oil.

 

My mileage did NOT increase after the egr delete. In fact, it has been 15.5 mpg for the life of the truck. None of the mods did anything for mileage, but I did not do them for that reason.

 

I have never seen any solid evidence to back that up and if your area starts doing smog checks on diesels which many are you could be in for an expensive surprise. Just because they don't do it today doesn't rule out tomorrow.

 

deletign the egr cooler will NOT change the mpg. not gonna happen. Been there done that.
how hard is it to change an oil cooler? well..... for me its a few hours, I have no idea how long it will take you. I have all the tools and have done more then a few hundred of them. I dont know what tools you have/dont have. I know you have not done one before so I woud count on a weekend's time.