I have an 08 F350 in the ford dealer and they are putting in new glow plugs. They found platic from the rocker and now the rocker arm is loose. They are recommending to chang the the rockers on one side or have it towed home. Any advise here? The truck ran fine before I took it in.

 

 

I had what I thought was 1 broken rocker arm...the rocker fell off the ball and the ball was at the bottom of the valve area.

I removed all the rockers (yes, driveway job). big job since all the engine subsystems wrap around the engine. had to prep the cab for a lift and lift the cab 4" in the front and 6" in the back. removed wheel well covers. buy some universal piviot joint sockets..and some crows foot sockets.

all fuel lines between injector and fuel rail have to be replaced when ever you remove (needed to remove to replace rockers)

there was 1 broken rocker, half a dozen worn to bare metal, the rest work to almost bear metal, 1 rocker push rod was "S" bent. about 1/3 of the rocker push rods were bent mildly (would not roll on a glass surface). saddles were fine. but I replaced them anyway.

if you put the rocker base in place and install the bolts almost but quite not all the way down.....the rocker base has about a half inch of slop in it...which is a problem if you install and torque it down. I installed everything so that the rockers would preload and center the rocker base, then followed the torque proceedures.

you need the crows foot to torque all fuel lines

since the covers came off already..you are probally missing (as I was) the seals for the lines that go thru the cover from the manifold and fuel pump. if you dont figure out the correct seal for that..you are going to get smoke in the cabin. I never did find the correct part number and just rigged something up.

go ahead and replace the fuel pressure sending unit on the rail while you have everything off.

there is a hose from the oil fill canister that runs to the block that will crack no matter what you do...so be prepared to installa flex hose with clamps between.

the rocker job is a PIA. you are going to use muscles you never knew you had. it take a long time with the cab on.

keep the injectors wet (flip the line from the injector to manifold up and fill with diesel, so that they dont stick closed..PIA to start if they dry out.

the parts cost me less than 800.00, but the labor took forever.

the PAX side is easier to do than the driver side.

you ahve to raise the cab some, remove both batteries and battery trays, remove air filter housing , turbo U pipe has to be removed, fuel cooler, deguase bottle, loosen the bolt for the steering shaft (dont for get to put it back) and wrestle with the cab bushing bolts which will most likely need a toruch to break free 9dont use impact gun for this...best to use a large breaker bar).

I dont know what the problem with the dealers is all about...they seem to know want to work on diesels that are not on warranty.

I had no problem tackling this job. I've worked on jet engines, helicopter engines, marine, truck, motorcycles, cars, etc.

the 6.4L international is old technology pushrod motor. get the after market push rods that are shorter..it turns out the original push rods are too long causing excessive preload which leads to rocker tip and cam damage.

I drilled out the holes on my push rods slightly before putting them in in the hopes of getting better oil flow to the rockers.

I found a guy that would machine holes into my saddles and put a concave hole on them so that oil would get into the valves easier...but I decided against it since the saddles were fine.

If I had a big garage, I would of pulled the heads so I could replace the cams lifters and bore scope the cam shaft.

I was going to rebuild this engine before retiring...but I think I'll just buy a ford crate motor and sell what I have for money+old motor. ford will supposedly take anything as a core.

 

Save yourself the trouble and have them do both sides while they have the truck. The rockers are wearable items and a total PITA to do the repair.