Hey everyone, I'm looking at buying a '99 F250 with the V10 and it has oil in the coolant. Obvious signs point to oil cooler as the truck doesn't overheat or blow any bubbles into the reservoir which would/should typically indicate head gaskets. The gentleman who owns the truck said he already had it in the shop and had the cooler replaced but I honestly believe that the only part replaced was the oil filter mount and not the entire cooler so it's possible the front gasket is leaking.

Typically I would look elsewhere for another truck but this one is super clean and well maintained with 140,000 pampered miles. That being said, what are my options for parts here? The only coolers I'm seeing are original Ford units but I've seen other forum members mention aftermarket units. Usually I'm all FoMoCo and Motorcraft but in this instance I'd like to weigh all possibilities. Also, so I have all of my bases covered, what are the part numbers for the all of the items I'll need to perform this repair?

Thanks in advance!

 

Never heard of an aftermarket oil cooler for the V10.

 

Oops, let me rephrase that. I read somewhere that someone was looking at an aftermarket cooler delete kit which I do not want.

I do have another question that will hopefully get more responses than my oil cooler question. I consistently read positive things about Mike's 5 Star Tuning. In fact, I almost purchased this for my 2000 V10 before it got totaled in an accident. One of my reservations about buying this '99 is the fact that it's a non-PI engine. Would the 5 Star Tuning make enough of an improvement to make up for the lack of PI heads? This truck will be for daily driving and occasionally pulling a 6,500lb 24' travel trailer.

 

I drive a 99 F350 super cab dually, with a V10 and pull a 31 foot 5th wheel. I don't have any complaints about the towing ability of this truck. (This opinion was made when the truck had a well used 150k engine in it). I don't know about the 5 star tuner, but am interested in the answers. I too am considering buying one.

I read your first post a couple of days ago, but didn't reply...My first response would be RUN. I bought my truck with dirty coolent. Maybe not oil, or so I thought. After several coolant changes, an oil cooler change, and an negative exhaust gas test, I never solved that problem. I also had a severe oil burning problem, which I did not know about until after I bought the truck. It burned 1 quart every 200 miles. Now I have a new engine, and am happy with the truck. I would say if you get a great deal and are willing to go through all the steps to try to ID the problem with that truck, knowing that you could end up putting a new engine in it, then GO FOR IT.

BTW. The "Oil Filter Mount" is the oil cooler on this truck. When I replaced mine, I did run across parts listed for an air cooled radiator type oil cooler, so maybe there are two different systems in the 99. It was a model change year, and strange things happen during a model change.

 

The 5-star tune will do a lot to the shifting, regardless of what it does to the engine's performance. Well worth it, in my opinion.

Side note: Lots of auto parts stores got "weird" when the F150's bigger brother the F250 "light duty" came out - a 7-lug version of the F150. I think it was only out the second-half of 1997 to 1998, and dropped when they came out with the Superduty in '99, but I do remember parts stores continually asking me "light duty or superduty" even for my '01.

 

Thanks for all of your help. I'm going to pass on his truck at this time. I know it's more than capable of doing the job but he's not willing to budge on the price enough to make it a fair deal for the amount of work I might have to perform on it. Until his truck I had no idea the V10s had this issue with the cooler leaking so I'm glad I at least know of something new to look out for in my search.

 

One thing to note: The problem is rare. I tend to think it's an error in manufacturing. It's not a "systemic" issue, otherwise lots of people would have the problem, and at a certain time in the engine's life. Not so, in this case. It's either a manufacturing issue - someone creases the gasket, or some other manual task causes the issue - or it's a lack of maintenance, as in changing the coolant enough.