This is my first post on this site so bear with me guys and gals.

i have a 2005 f350 6.0L and it has been a great truck until recently. i know that this is an overly talked about topic but i just noticed that i am a gallon low on antifreeze. i think we all know what this might mean. the coolant is either going out the exhaust or into the oil pain. either way i am going to need to replace the head gaskets, correct? I don't see any coolant leaking anywhere on the motor and i don't have a drip anywhere either. i have looked up different options for a fix for this and i feel like they leave out some crucial areas.

I agree that the the egr should be deleted and that the engine oil cooler should be replaced. i also agree that the arp headstuds should be installed. But my truck has 303,000 miles on it and it just started having this problem. i have only owned it for the last 40,000 miles. i have been very maintenance wary of this truck and i change the oil every 5 thousand miles and i also change the fuel filters, oil filter, clean the air filter and clean the egr valve when i change the oil. just 10,000 miles ago i replaced all the oil in the transmission, t-case, and differentials.

so now i'm guessing you have enough information about my truck to help me out a little bit. my questions are...

-should i worry about the bottom end at all? i do have a lot of miles and am worried i might have too much wear on the bottom end to only rework the top end.
-what are the best (in your opinion) parts i should go with and what should i do for a stout motor that is going to drive me from coast to coast? i travel a lot with a camper and i want to get the best fuel mileage.
-should i remove the cab? I've heard you can do the top end work without removing the cab. is this true? should i take off the cab anyway? if so does anybody have a helpful link to help me through this?


I know this is a vague post with a lot of flexibility for answers but that's kind of what i would like to see. Anything that has worked for anybody would be helpful information. one more little tidbit of information before i post. i used to be that coal rolling tuner junkie that ran the **** out of 6.0L without a good platform. so this problem with the truck is totally 100% my fault, yes i did do good maintenance on the truck but i did run an SCT tuner on the street tune for about 6 months.

Thanks for reading and if you have any helpful links they would be much appreciated!

 

Welcome to FTE. Since this is specific to the 6.0 I moved it to that part of the forums.

 

First check is to pull the EGR valve and look for coolant. It should be dry, sooty and not slimy.

Second is to install a pressure gauge in the degas line and check for coolant pressure.

On first look I would say the EGR cooler went and not the HG's. Replace the EGR cooler and Oil Cooler as a set.

Digital gauges would verify ECT/EOT running temp spreads.

Josh

 

Welcome to FTE, first thing you need to do is Park the truck nose down hill over nite then pull the EGR valve check for moisture / coolent how's the oil look?

 

the truck has been parked on a very slight incline for about 2 months. i went and pulled the egr valve today and the upper chamber was damp and a little slimy. the bottom chamber had some soot in it but it was really flaky and brittle instead of coming off in clumps like i thought it might. (i work in North Dakota and it gets pretty cold here so I'm guessing that some of the coolant might have froze in the soot?) i replaced the egr and started the truck up and ran it up and down the road a bit after letting it warm up to get all the fluids at operating temperature. i just parked it on a steeper incline just to double check tomorrow but it does look like the valve WAS damp so it has to be the cooler right? i also bought an egr delete kit awhile back but never installed it and if i install that it should take care of the problem (i think?). the truck was on enough of an incline that i don't think that checking the oil would yield any accurate results but now that i think about it i should have checked for a milky residue. that means there is coolant in the oil I've been told. i'll check it tomorrow again after i move the truck into the garage.

-thanks for the move senix!
-bullit390, i plan on getting a set of gauges to more accurately monitor my temps, but that'll be a few paychecks from now. if i were to replace the egr would it be a good idea to replace the headstuds and head gaskets while i'm that far into it?
-04badford, i will check the oil tomorrow when i move into the garage, i know i should have checked today but i got ahead of myself and went moved it and then left the crew house without checking.

 

If the truck has been sitting for two months may have algie growth in the fuel and HFCM down on the rail , do you use a fuel supplement every fill up? like howes ,diesel kleen, stanadyne, etc. If the truck sat nose down for 2months it could have mixed disapated and left a gooie mess ,I would try again but pull the valve the next day, Does the truck Over heat at all?

 

i do use Howes as a fuel supplement on every fill up. i checked it again today after running it yesterday and i had the same result. the second lower chamber was pretty dry and sooty. the upper chamber was a damp. i also checked the oil and it was black like normal without the telltale milky residue of coolant in the oil. the truck has overheated on me one time when i was moving my dads boat and at the end of a particularly long climb it spiked up to redline and took me about two miles to get it to cool down by going to neutral and keeping the rpms at around 1500 to keep the fan and coolant going. other than that there have been no overheating issues.

 

Are you talking about the HFCM down on the rail was dry and sooty or the EGR Valve was? A Gauge sure would be Helpful . If you think your truck will make it to Auto Zone See if we can get some codes pulled.

 

The SCT Tuner does a decent job pulling CEL and pending codes.

I haven't done it myself but it can read some live data like ECT and EOT

Josh

 

i'm probably not doing a good job of describing. but the upper smaller chamber is where it is damp. the bottom chamber of the valve is dry and sooty. i do clean this thing out every oil change so it was relatively clean compared to some of the egr valves i have seen get pulled out. the soot could be soaking up some of the dampness on the bottom area and making it less noticeable. my truck doesn't have the check engine light on or anything and my livewire sct tuner isn't picking up any thrown codes either. i work out in new town north dakota so getting to an autozone would be about 3 hours round trip.

 

OK , that's what I thought you were talking about, still check HFCM and Fuel pressure just in case , now whats the EGR Valve values,when I get back home ( still on vacation) we can run the Valve series to make sure your valve is in operation correctly ( after cleaning with carb cleaner try not to get the electrical side).

 

Most likely a blown EGR cooler. Do a delete and new oil cooler. BEFORE doing the oil cooler, but a Restore and a Restore flush on the coolant system. A clean coolant system is the best thing this truck needs.

I could be a HG, but more likely the EGR cooler. Telling the difference can be tricky. I'll let other more knowledgeable members comment on this.

The low end should be fine. We have a few members with a half million miles on their 6.0s.

Head gasket work is much easier popping the cab. Its tougher with the cab on. If you have the tools to pop the cab, you will do it because its not as back breaking. For an egr delete and oil cooler, you will not need to pop the cab. Perhaps pulling the radiator (gives you a place to stand) would be worthwhile if you don't have (or even it you do) a top side creeper.

OEM oil cooler and Sinister EGR delete seem to be the tickets. There are cheaper EGR deletes, but there have been a lot of cheaper EGR deletes that leak after install.

If you don't have ARP studs, don't worry about fuel mileage. Nothing you can safely do will greatly impact your MPG. If you have studs, an SCT tune and an Atlas 40 FICM tune will save you a few MPGs, but may not pay for themselves in the long run.

 

Brake Cleaner...

http://www.flatratetech.com/downloads/diesel_7.pdf

Looking for 0.6V – 1.2V EGR KOEO

Josh

 

why use brake cleaner The thinking of that was to harsh , I'm out of town so the freaking wifi keeps closing me out, carb cleaner and a plumbers flux brush.

 

Ford claims carb cleaner swells the shaft seal and to use brake cleaner.

Which, in my mind seems odd, as carb cleaner is usually less harsh than brake cleaner. It's Page 7 in that PDF I linked.

Josh