Background. 2004 Excursion with 110K miles that I use to tow a 12k lbs toy hauler. I put a brand new water pump in at 100K when I bought the truck. Over the last year I have been loosing a little coolant, like 1/4 a gallon every 1500 miles. I monitor temps with a SGII. Towing in 90 degree heat the largest my delta ever got was 16. I was afraid my EGR cooler was leaking due to the coolant loss so I pulled the EGR valve and the intake was moist.

Two weeks ago I tore it apart, replaced the EGR cooler with a Sinister cooler, Oil Cooler with a ford factory and installed Sinister coolant filter.
After putting everything back together I filled the system with DI water and then drove, then drained. Repeated this 6 times until the water coming out was almost clear but with a very light yellow tint. I then filled with Zerex ELC, 3.5 gallons and the rest DI water.

Pulled my trailer this weekend and had ECT of 215 pulling a long steep grade with EOT of 242 at the highest. WTF? 30 degree delta now!
Did I just plug the new oil cooler by flushing? Did the 1% ford gold cause the ELC to gel and plug the cooler? I'm at a loss.
Do I flush it again and then replace the brand new oil cooler for $300? Then do I put ELC back in or ford gold?
Any input is appreciated.

 

Dang it dude, you did it in reverse! You do all the cleaning/flushing prior to putting the new coolers in

At least that's what I've read, been told and would do... Maybe you could try a reverse flush? The new oil cooler shouldn't clog as easy as the old style...

 

I may be doing it wrong, but I never looked at deltas except on flat ground. I had some crazy ones after doing my oil cooler. Flat ground was always 4-8 for the past 2 years.

 

Can't judge a cooler while towing. I'm not towing the weight you are, and I see the max of 234* EOT up grades. (I back off when it reaches 230* and climbing)

Need to check on level ground with out the trailer.

 

He DID NOT mean the way your taking the Temps

Your supposed to Flush and clean the Cooling system FIRST then change the Coolers out to New



Yes you should be able to reverse flush Oil Cooler

since it new the Junk should Not be too Packed in there


Well even the New OEM Updated Oil Cooler Still has Very Small Cooling Channel Rows

The only dif in the Newer Updated OEM Oil Cooler is they Added 1 Row for better cooling

Unless you mean the IPR High Flow Oil Cooler??? It has Bigger cooling paths that wont clog as easy. The Kicker with this model Oil Cooler is it DONT Cool the Oil as well since with bigger paths the Surface area goes down

 

I missed this part Sean Glad you caught it



CRMARSHAL you also need to Check ECT & EOT Temps after a 12 hour Cold Soak. This verifys the sensors Integrity. Should be close to Ambeint temp if checked in A.M. after 12 hour cold soak this last part (Ambeint temp) is Not Critical though

 

CRMARSHAL you also need to Check ECT & EOT Temps after a 12 hour Cold Soak. This verifys the sensors Integrity. Should be close to Ambeint temp if checked in A.M. after 12 hour cold soak this last part (Ambeint temp) is Not Critical though[/QUOTE]

The sensors read near ambient on a cold startup.

Also, Blades, my max temps were pulling from Elberta to Eureka just south of you. You know how steep that pull is.
I will check them unloaded on flat ground, however pulling this trailer last summer I was only getting deltas of 16 max pulling uphill so I screwed the pooch not flushing first.

How do you do a reverse flush?

 

CRMARSHAL you also need to Check ECT & EOT Temps after a 12 hour Cold Soak. This verifys the sensors Integrity. Should be close to Ambeint temp if checked in A.M. after 12 hour cold soak this last part (Ambeint temp) is Not Critical though[/QUOTE]

The sensors read near ambient on a cold startup.

Also, Blades, my max temps were pulling from Elberta to Eureka just south of you. You know how steep that pull is.
I will check them unloaded on flat ground, however pulling this trailer last summer I was only getting deltas of 16 max pulling uphill so I screwed the pooch not flushing first.

How do you do a reverse flush?

 

Distilled water NOT deionized water.
Di water is very active and will corrode things in a BIG hurry.

Sean Remembering the Boston victims

 

I actually used RO water which is very similar to distilled. Thanks for the heads up though. Terminology is similar but results are not.

 

Thanks Blade! I did not know that about the upgraded OEM -- thought I had read the passages were bigger. Learn something new every day...

 

No you are Correct^^

This style oil cooler is an IPR Design NOT Ford


read below
IPResearch High Flow Oil Cooler Kit for Ford 6.0 Powerstroke

This one is trickey the Deltas go further apart but you can maintain flow to egr cooler

Since bigger passages Cooling transfer area is less thus Higher Deltas But Flow to EGR Cooler remains Good

With this coooler you can throw 15* Spread out the window the kicker is during towing the EOT gets closer to Derate temp of 253*

There is a trade off

 

I am in rep prison, but THAT is a GREAT explanation...

 

Tomorrow I am going to drain the ELC and try back flushing the oil cooler. I still don't understand how just running water through the system broke loose all kinds of crap. I mean, the coolant was running through all those passages too right? I didn't use restore or any other chemical, just water to dilute the Ford Gold that was in there.

I have the old oil cooler and am very tempted to cut it in half to see if it was plugged or rather how plugged it was. Couldn't have been too bad since the highest delta I ever saw under heavy load with ambient in the 90s was 16 degrees.

After back flushing the cooler I'm going to flush the entire system several times with water and see if the delta's improve with the water before I dump another $100 in ELC in only to drain it and replace another oil cooler.

The upside is I'm pretty sure I can replace the oil cooler in under 8 hours this time. Practice makes perfect

 

Save the ELC filter it before it goes back in

Iv done this a few times


DONT Leave water in it they rust Fast VERY VERY Fast overnight fasst