Howdy. This is my first time ever posting to any forum of any type. I've tried to research and answer my questions without posting another problem that has already been answered somewhere on here, but I couldn't locate it. Anyway, I have an 04 6.0L with 257,000 miles. It has head studs and has apparently had the egr delete. However, I just acquired this truck (knowing it had issues), I just didn't know how deep the rabbit hole went. There is oil in the coolant reservoir, runs with hardly any power at all and blue smokes like crazy when driving. I climbed under it and it really looked like the truck was leaking fuel from the rear of the head gasket on the driver's side head. I started it just a minute ago and unscrewed the cap on the coolant tank trying to see if it was a blown head gasket but the oil/water mixture was like a calm pond in there, not the first bubble. What do I do? I am at a loss diagnostically on whether or not to tear it down to see if the head gasket is blown. Could there be another problem that would cause the loss of power and smoke and leak from the cylinder?

 

Pictures of the coolant soup would help and what does it smell like?

 

Smells like oil I suppose?

 

There's no easy diagnosis of a modern diesel other than a rod through the side of the block with proper monitoring tools and a lot better view of that coolant. Looking for bubbles is not a good tell. Considering you have coolant contamination and blue smoke when driving tells of a major issue, but it could be singular like a head gasket or multiples like oil cooler gasket and cylinder issue. Without the prior history and knowing the quality of the work is going to require a lot of work to sort.

How much work and money are you willing to go through?

 

Plenty of work... Minimal dollars. Ha! I've just discovered it has a cracked fuel filter cap on top of the engine so I'm willing to mark that under temporary consideration that it is the culprit of the fuel source its leaking pretty heavily. Previous owner said his shop diagnosed a bad oil cooler but that's all he said was wrong due to lack of power and it burning oil I believe now that it may not be a gasket at all, but worn rings. I'll post a video of just the truck cranking with no start. Will the lope in engine rotation point to low compression?

 

Copy and paste this in your url and see if this gives any indication about cylinder compression.
https://youtu.be/8WwQewaJMag

 

Not that healthy. Good guy to follow, although he is deceased.

 

I just listened to your crank video and that's bad... It's not compressing on one cylinder.
Scan it for codes and see if you get an injector balance code on one cylinder. That will tell you which side to start on.
When mine sounded like that, I had a melted piston, scored cylinder wall, and burned exhaust valve in cylinder 7... the engine had to come out. You might get luckier on that front, maybe only have to pull 1 head, but you have other issues too, with the fluid mixture.

Here's how mine cranked... Sorry but this sounds the same as yours...
https://youtu.be/GOSrVP2_XB4

 

Bummer. It's exactly like mine. The only scanners I have are an obdII code reader and my sctx4 programmer both of which say that zero codes are being thrown. I have a gauge to test compression, can I check compression with the engine fully assembled as it sits?

 

Get the adapter to hook your tester up to the glue plug holes and you can.

 

Perfect. Thanks! I'll check back in with results after I get it done. Forums are awesome!

 

Just a warning, you'll probably break the glow plugs harnesses getting them off the glow plugs. They're just known for that. Amazon harnesses are cheap though. I've been using them for a year with no issues.

 

Okay, great. Thanks for the heads up.

 

 

A few things.
If you think you have oil and colant mixing then pop the oil filter out and look at what you have in there. Nice oil or brown/black milkshake?
The next one I should of made the first one. You always want to use a socket on both the oil filter and the fuel filter. NEVER use the 1/2" square. If you do it will crack.