Ok, figured out my egr cooler is bad. Took it to ford and they diagnosed bad egr cooler and bad headgaskets. This week ive been calling alot of shops and have been getting lots of different opinions. Some guys are betting that its a 95% chance its just a bad egr cooler, others are saying bad headgasket, so im in a predicament.

Cant decide if i should just delete egr cooler and replace oil cooler and save thousands of dollars, but run the risk of it being a bad headgasket also and then having to pay for the labor of them tearing into again.

5k for a headgasket job is really not in the budget right now, especially if its not really a bad headgasket. Im REALLY torn right now!


P.S. If any Oregon guys know a good shop let me know, thanks

 

replace the egr cooler and oil cooler then recheck at very least, tear down for egr and oil isn't exactly the same as for the HG's, I have never replaced HG's myself but the egr and oil cooler are in the valley vs the heads outside. The reason your getting the opinion it is just the egr cooler is because they can give similar symptoms of puking out of the degas cap as well as white steam out of the tailpipe. There is a tsb on how to diagnose. As well as utilizing a scangauge 2 and looking at your oil to coolant deltas to see if the oil cooler clogged resulting in egr cooler rupturing

 

Southern Oregon Diesel is a pretty good shop, but I'm pretty sure you have already talked to them. If you have some time and some mechanical skills you could do it yourself and save a bunch of money. I did mine in my driveway and I figured it took me about 8 hours of work. I sent my intake over to Independent Motor Rebuilder to clean the intake because it was nasty. Any reason you wouldn't just delete the egr?

 

No i havent talked to them, i just figured they didnt worked on heavy diesel rigs. Yea, sorry for that. I am going to delete the egr. I have some skills, definitely no time, this project just seems above my skill level.

 

Well if you just do the egr delete, they have kits available that do not require intake manifold removal and would be a fairly quick job. If your deltas are good, I wouldn't replace the oil cooler. But, since your egr cooler failed, deltas are probably bad, which would be a definite on oil cooler replacement. Do you have a way to monitor deltas?

 

Yes i can find deltas. But i figured might as well get the updated oil get from Ford.

 

If your oil cooler is good, I would leave it alone. Just fix the egr cooler problem first, then see if you need the head gaskets. I was lucky enough that the electronics in my egr valve went bad so I did not have any fluid cross contamination, but that forced me to do the egr delete.

 

I must have missed it, what were your symptoms? We can only go off what you are telling us , but it seems like you don't trust the diagnoses of the repair shop? And if that is the case maybe we can help.

 

Blowing coolant out of degas. Coolant in the egr valve housing. Small amount of white smoke on morning start up. No performance issues.

Took it to Ford, for 107$ they diagnosed bad egr cooler & bad headgaskets. How they diagnosed headgaskets, i don't know. So yes, I'm leery of their headgasket diagnoses. I know to truly diagnose headgasket i need to replace egr cooler.If i had 5k to drop, i would just do studs and all if it all and be done with it. But i don't, so dropping 5k on a possible problem is hard to swallow.

What I'm leaning towards now is tackling the egr delete & new oil cooler and going from there.

 

Does an EGR cooler fail on its own? Doesn't it usually fail due to a bad oil cooler?

 

Does an EGR cooler fail on its own? Doesn't it usually fail due to a bad oil cooler?

That is what I thought too... Plugged oil cooler limits coolant flow through cooler and the rest of the cooling system which superheats egr cooler causing a crack which leaks coolant into your intake, into combustion chamber resulting in white smoke, elevated cylinder pressures possibly causing a blown head gasket or if it gets hot enough a cracked head....and coolant puking from degas bottle too.
If your egr cooler blew, do the oil cooler... Would be good if you could flush cooling system before tear down but yours may be too far gone. Maybe one of the more experienced guys can give you tips on double checking the head gaskets with the condition of your engine... Or, do the egr/ oil coolers, put her together, then check the head gaskets. It sucks...but you don't have much of a choice and you never know, you may get lucky and that work may fix your problem. Just hope for the best. You can save quite a bit if you do labour yourself and this forum has awesome people with expansive knowledge and are willing to help with advice. Good luck and please keep us updated.

 

If you blew coolant out the degas bottle AND you were diagnosed as a bad EGR valve you also have a clogged oil cooler AND the heads lifted to blow the coolant out. Sorry - I know you don't wanna hear it, but you need to do all 3. And I would install studs instead of head BOLTS.

 

Would unplugging the egr valve help diagnosis this?

 

YES EGR Cooler can fail on its OWN!!!

But More Common for Oil Cooler to Kill EGR Cooler


Does your Diagnostic Receit say anything about a Cylinder compression test?????????????????????


Here is what you MUST Do

Get a Gauge to Measure ECT vs EOT per the TEST Procedure!!See if Oil Cooler is OK

Drain Coolant and Do a Compression Test on Each Cylinder During CRANKING ONLY To Check the HeadGaskets

Remove Fuel Pump and FICM Fuses for compression test

Might be worth a Couple cranks Before the Compression Test is Done when the GLOWPLUGS are Out to Purge Any Fluids out of the Cylinders so you don't get a WHACKY Reading


Replace EGR Cooler is DEFINATLY BAD!!

As Long as you Caught the Issue Fast enough the Headgaskets Could be OK

You Could be able to just do Both EGR and Oil Coolers and Be Good To Go!!!!

 

A lot of Trucks Headgasket will Survive even when Hydrolocked

Did you ever Hear a Liquid Cylinder Knock??

Or even Hydro Lock????

Just would depend if the truck got pushed Hard since this been going On if the HeadGasket is good or not!