Seen this question looked at some other post but everyone that did it had around 30000 miles on new HGS. I've had my truck for five years only put 40000 on it I just rolled 15000 total on the truck. Not sure if or when the HGS were done is it possible to do this at this height of mileage with low risk of failure.

 

thinking about doing it myself with 218k and not sure of the condition of the hg.

 

If you aren't venting coolant out of the degas bottle, then you should have no problem doing the studs without replacing the gaskets.

 

Well I don't have any coming out the degas bottle. I'm going egr delete and oil cooler this weekend. Is there a write up on how to do the studs without removal.

 

What is your plan for removing the head bolts closest to the firewall without removing the head?

Same goes for stud installation.

 

There are a few write-ups here showing replacing bolts with studs without removing heads... You do have to loosen the motor mounts and rock the engine over to gain clearance

Josh

 

Yeah, I've seen the write ups. How did you do yours?

It's not quite as straightforward as loosening the motor mounts and easing each side up. On the front end you have the fan and stator assembly to contend with. At least on my truck, there's not enough slop in this area to just start lifting up on each side.

Looking back on when I did mine, the driver's side head is relatively easy. On the passenger side, I removed the cover to the airbox and the evaporator, but everything else stayed in and the head came right out.

I'm also not sure you can get all the headbolts out / studs in without at least removing the airbox cover and evap, even with the tilt method. But maybe you can.

Cole: I'm by no means trying to tell you what can and can't be done here. I think the people that did this by tilting the engine may look back and say that was the easiest way for them to do it. I look back on the job and doing it by head removal/new gaskets and for me that's the only way I'd ever do it. For others, they'd only do it by removing the engine.

It looks like from the string of questions that you're in the info-gathering phase of this job. You should be able to find a lot of info about the job, but I"m not sure how much is out there about the engine tilt method. But I definitely do recall seeing a write up.

 

I personally think it's a waste of time and energy to put studs in without doing the HG's.How do you know the old gaskets seal didn't break? How do you know the trueness of the head torque to begin with ? My saying is if it not broke bad leave it be. I'm sure there is some that worked, but for how long ?

 

This is just a thought I've been pondering. I know that they do one bolt at a time but not sure if they do it in reverse order or not. And I just called ford and got an oasis report my hg have never been done. The biggest repair was a turbo. I'm looking for another set of heads now so that when I am ready I'll have a set of heads ready to go less down time. Just looking at different options.

 

Replacing bolts/ studs one at a time isn't a new concept... It's done across the board from motorcycles to Cummins 5.9 to Deere 6081 engines.

You do reverse order to replace them.

Josh

 

If my head gaskets were in good shape I would far prefer to leave them in that change them for no reason. It's always best to disturb as little as possible on these engines. Changing the bolts to studs can be done without disturbing the gaskets so that's what I would do if I were to install studs. Since I don't run a tune I see no reason to install studs in the first place but that's another debate.

Brian

 

I want to do a few tunes I'd just like to have the piece of mind of the studs. I'm also looking at purchasing a travel trailer. I also haul horses no since I'm doing a horse rescues for ex race horses.

 

I too would leave my gaskets/heads alone and go that route of replacing one by one.

Maybe next Summer for me.

Josh

 

Just pulled my cab with a winch in my brothers shop. After I was done I was talking to a friend who does body work. He has a simple (can be home made) bracket that he puts on his cherry picker and pulls the cabs off. After going through that job I would say it is worth the time to pull the cab, and I would definitely have the heads reworked and go with the new (soon to be OEM) titatium head gaskets made by Victor Reinz. After countless hours of research my conclusion is that Victor Reinz produces the OEM gaskets for Ford, someone correct me if I am wrong. I was also told that this new titanium series gasket will replace all OEM's. My truck had 190K on it and had a blown EGR cooler. If your going to start pulling loads, and don't want to get stuck broke down somewhere I would say pull the cab, get your heads machined, and install new head bolts and torgue them to 250. You will be rolling down the road with piece of mind. As most everyone told me "It is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when " those gaskets will blow on a 6.0 My dad is a well know diesel mechanic (50+ years) in Minnesota, and he advised me, no matter what do not drive your rig with water leaking into the exhaust. He says if that happens, park it, pull it, trailer it, and fix it because if you don't and the antifreeze gets in the oil it will take out you lower end. Good Luck

 

I have no coolant leaks nor do I have a bad egr cooler. I'm doing an egr delete this weekend as a mater of fact. Just rolling the thought around in my head about doing the studs without pulling the heads.