First off, I have an early 6.0 in a 2004 F250. I love the truck. Now for the good stuff. I recently had a slight problem with the coolant. It was down about two gallons. Probably mostly my fault for not checking under the hood as often as I should. But anyway, I took it to the dealer, cuz i don't know any GOOD r4epair places out in the boonies. This is what they told me. " I need new head gaskets because the pressure test had a drop of 4 pounds in 10 min. HUM! And $6800.00 worth of parts and labor! HUM. Truck only has 104551 for mileage! They also found the lower radiator hose was chaffed almost all the way thru but wouldn't fix that, they wanted the money! Here is what i found (by the way, I are a backyard mechanic by trade). After changing the lower radiator hose and flushing the green coolant out that the dealer put in, I serviced it with real coolant, What is supposed to be in it. Bled the system and let it warm up under fast rpm. I then noticed steam coming from under the degas cap. I think I found part of the problem. New upgraded cap!! No bubbles in the "overflow tank" and no vapor out of the tail pipe. Took it to a radiator shop for another pressure test and he did it a bit different. He attached a hose to the drain and "cracked the drain open. Punped it up to 18 psi and son of a gun, no drop in 15 min. Now all i have to do is find that damn EGR cooler!!!

 

Park your truck nose down over night then pull the EGR valve to see if it's wet. That should tell you if the EGR is leaking. If your EGR cooler is toast likely your oil cooler is too. You should also get some obdII gauges to verify the coolant/oil delta.



How long have you ran that green coolant?

 

EGR Cooler is where the Blue hose connects to center of the Valley. 2 Gallons of coolant is not good. if you didn't pop the cooler you got it hot enough too.

 

Green coolant. Yuck. Plan on an oil cooler, and an egr delete. Don't neglect this. My 2004 is sitting with a melted motor because I put off the oil cooler and egr delete.


You can do the work yourself. Plenty of help here, and youtube videos if you run into an issue.

 

Ya you can wrench it

The turbo might be a little pest for a minute upon install


Where your gauges and what do they say

 

Just sooty and black. Cleaned with carb cleaner. Works better than brake clean.

 

I don't think I cooked the engine since it was 18 degrees when I found my problem. No heat is a damn good indicator. Since I did the hose and the cap, still full on coolant and running quite well. As for doing the egr block off and oil cooler, my mechanicing days are over. Shoulders won't take it anymore. So I would have to find a good mechanic that I could trust or just get rid of this and go gas.

 

If you don't have them, do yourself a favor and get some gauges.

 

My truck ran terrific for 2 years with blown head gaskets... never knew it til I put a load on the engine... then it started spewing coolant out the degas bottle.

It can be a sneaky problem...

 

Your truck might be Fine I think you resolved the direct problem and found a problem in the works with the green coolant


Get a gauge that will tell you if you did any harm to the oil cooler you maybe able to chemical flush the oil cooler if the green coolant slimed it and Hurt its efficiency


I think some these guys have pretty good gauge setups for 50 bucks or less

 

Had my truck rechecked and damn the whole thang! Blowing head gasket only but it looks like every thing else will be changed as well. By the time I get all of it done, this truck should last until I die.

 

So your putting a Cummins in it???

 

Be sure they check the head(s) for flatness, use ONLY Ford OEM headgaskets, and use ARP studs to but it all back together! Superdutyservice near kansas city, has lots of videos on FTE where stock heads just bought from Ford need milling..

Spending $7k is a lot, but trying to save $500 bucks and doing it all again would really suck much worse.

 

Ha!, that'll do it.

 

I want an engine that will last and I don't like Cummings. Its a piece of s___! If anything, A detroit diesel would go in it if I could aford it.