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i had the same thing just couple weeks ago... was smelling "cooking" coolant once the engine was warm... but couldnt find any signs of leaks anywhere... happened to get under the truck to work on something else, when i happened to look up and see a droplet hanging from the crank pulley... was never there when it was warm because it was flung off from the pulley turning... ran a bore scope up between the pulleys and there was a much larger dropplet hanging off the water pump pulley... was leaking around the small free plug in the bottom...
i agree i wouldnt jump to headgaskets failing.. it could easily be anything else...
I'm including this picture of what to look for. This was on my 05.
Not here to talk ****, but I've found that checking the heads and deck with a straight edge, cleaning the block and heads with red cookies on a high speed and burning the surface clean with ATF and doing a final cleanup with liberal use of clean shop rags will do wonders.
Also, that being said, over torqueing the studs to 245 ft.lbs. and using Fel-pro brand MLS head gaskets that use their "proprietary" sealing compound (which I've found to be chemically similar to viton via MSDS) will get you longevity even with hot tunes. I've literally beat the tar out of my 6.0L, towing 11k on extreme tunes with aftermarket injectors, powermax s2 turbo and a host of other go-fast goodies and have yet to blow a gasket after nearly 40k miles on the current build. If you purchase the ARP 625 studs, you can torque to nearly 300 ft. lbs., increasing the holding strength even more.
ARP told me via tech support that 245 ft. lbs. is 90% yield on the 425 studs. While they disagreed with my chosen value, they did say that they've seen people torque them to 275 ft. lbs. without failure. I personally believe my longevity is due tot he torque value and head gasket composition.
I’ve also concluded it is Viton, not the silicon of the Int/Ford gaskets. The silicon has a higher temperature range by at least 300°F, and I wouldn’t condemn it so much based on my engines situation. I also don’t think the bolts/studs have as much to do with the failure with as we generally think, but it's good insurance. There's no better evidence than this thread. Throughout this motors 2003 to 2010 production International never changed the bolts, which based on the warranty costs could have been a very easy thing to do, even with a part number change that most would never notice. And Ford would have had a team of engineers looking at the warranty issues of suppliers as they always do. It’s a process not fun to experience.
There are four to five different casting numbers of the heads. The only one that people somewhat take notice of is the last one as that dictates new parts as they don’t transfer over from the earlier assembly’s. It’s not just a 20mm dowel, and they had to acknowledge at least the change in location of the injector holddown, and some others Coming from a company that had huge foundry operations, you don’t change the identity due to paint, you change it because of a physical change in dimensions, alloy or process.
In the service side, I’d agree that it seems all the attention is placed on the heads, the noticeable failure point, but it’s very few that pay stringent attention to the decks and it’s 50% of the sealing surface. Everyone dances around the area of prep due to in my view the warnings rather then better direction by the manufacturers. In my experience, most factory engineers don’t hold a positive viewpoint of service operations, the perverbal give them an inch. And it tends to restrict a lot of information being distributed. From my own experience having both an OE and aftermarket experience, I turned down a much better paying promotion to work exclusively on the aftermarket side, it wasn’t worth the frustration on a much larger scale.
As first written, an opinion, not an answer.......
With Jack's info about Ford not changed the head bolts at all even with the head gasket failure, I wonder what they changed if any to address what in my opinion to be a high failure rate of the head gasket leak. That may shed light on what Ford team think/found out what the problem is. I am also worry they even ignore it due to pissible proving themselves liabe for the costly repair.
As for DIY, I can see why bolts can cause problem easier. One is that torque increases as the bolt is threaded more due to more threading area to slide over in the block. With stud, the nut has constant, and less threads. Second, with bolts, if there is air or liquid left in there, wrong torque will result. I found tight air in brake caliper piston push out a lot of force. So oil or any contamination will screw up the result. So it means correctly installed, bolts may work as well, as long as all threads are chased cleaned, oil is cleared and bolted down exactly as specified
On the studs, I think failure can be surface prep as many pointed out. Ford is said to use a block of steel to scape off the old gasket according to Rusty, srmastertech (RIP). That leaves lots to be desired, especially given some very odd machining surface we have seen. Add to that is just non-consensus on a best way to prep the surface. Some machine it pretty smooth (as shown in many pictures from rebuilt heads), while dieseltechron said to keep the original cutting groove for some means variance (I forgot the term here) I interpret that as leaving someteeth for it to bite. The straight tolerance was also changed from 2 to 4 thous. Then the diagonal measurements of straight edge. Some shows diagonal from one end to the other, whike another shows local diagonal (45 degree, across each cylinder bore).
Given the potental high heat due to egr and even somewhat stuck open injector, or water moisture in air, maybe those also cause too much pressure beyond designed limit and cause head gasket to fail and also cause head bolts to stretch?
On another thought, if we reinstall the head exactly as Ford did, and do it correctly, would it means we will still have the same high failure rate as factory engines?
The only trail I can find is the casting numbers/part numbers on the heads.
Warranty costs go back to the supplier, in case this would be International. A good friend of mine had transferred into the sealing division of the company, and when the rear main seal was believed to be the cause of the early oil leakage out of the bell housing he had to eat $800 for every repair. There was only a few dollars in profit to be the supplier of each part.
Both srmastertech and DTR did not follow the instructions, they diverted per the "give them an inch" comment.
Considering what I experienced in my career, and for a number of years my director was a former member of Ford's Scientific Research Team with an Phd in materials science so I got some inside viewpoints, Ford probably researched the situation to a more detailed view then International. I also worked with Int and they were never staffed like Ford. So I put a lot of credence into what Ford issued in a TSB to check for flatness in the heads. Diagonal and length checks are only in Internationals service manuals. I think there is a lot of flexibility in the longitudinal direction, and the heads have a natural stress relaxing tendency to cup. Even brand new heads never in service.
This the last I have from Ford, and the areas are very specific, including not incorporating the top area.
This has been hashed over for years with lots of opinions, mine included. I probably should have not reopened this can of worms.......
The problem with the studs or bolts is if they are not free at the bottom end within the block, either during installation or thermal expansion it will push the fastener upwards, loosing some of the tension trying to be achieved and additionally stressing the top threads that are typically the only threads that carry the load, depending on the ductility of the material. Aluminum engages more threads because the initial threads distort more.
Great info. Instead of opening a can of worm, you showed me a pandorabox that I wonder what is inside. Or is it a pandora box? Can't be, got to be some good stuff in there
On the weekend I topped up the coolant and took it on a 200 mile run, truck ran awesome. All the heats within check (8f differential between the coolers). Returned and no change to the coolant level ! I checked the coolant itself its actually fairly clean (just a bit of slime around the cap). Did a test strip and the ph and acid levels all checked out. So now I'm leaning to the waterpump as some suggested. I run the rotella ELC.
I had done a 6 hour run pulling a New Holland back hoe prior which really made it snort. I'm wondering if the high RPMs etc. would have caused the gaskets to leak some ? I'm a good 4 litres down so its going somewhere ! I tightened one of the coolant filter hoses which looked like it might have contributed some. Next step as you suggested is to get in closer to the water pump. Can't really see much from the top or bottom. No real drips off the bottom of the motor, nothing in the Rad.
As I mentioned I got this engine rebuilt from Blackwater 8 years ago with the studs installed (as additional option). I have put over 60,000 miles on it running one of Matts tunes and pulling a lot of heavy equipment with a 22N Load Max 5th wheel. I would get another from them without hesitation. Couldn't really pull this much without the tune or enjoy the truck. The fuel savings alone is justification.
I'll look closer where some of you have pointed out. Cheers.
Tune and studs ...... you might want to search though akblackfoots threads. He ran into an issue with a well rebuilt motor and running a tune he puked. No program, no puke. The motor was torn down with no head gasket issues found, but the resolution was the install of "bleeding" tube at the back end of the heads. I've prepped my heads to do the same.
It's a situation that really intrigued me as I was always confounded as how Ford could have screwed up the volume of the Degas bottle to the point a new level had to be marked. With our LS motor, it is a necessity to bleed out air or it will overhead. These motors have an air bleed similar to the nipple on the radiator tank, but it's for the oil cooler region. But with my heads off the block you can play around and see when the heads are installed you can have an air bible trapped in the back of the head. When the air space is heated it's going to expand quite a lot. Maybe that's the reason for the incorrect calculations of degas volume, and why some people with tunes have a confounding puke situation.
Jack,with so much info you provided above and references to a can of worm, I thought it's something I would love to read, worm or not. Pandora's box maybe a bit exaggerate of the sutuation, but there are probably some good info in those opposite opinions
Sullyt28,
On the head gasket issue, I wonder if you did the coolant bubble test abd the coolant pressure wot test yet
Do I win anything? Dammitt Jack, you are either going to kill yourself over this (hearts can stop pumping), or build the "perfect" 6.0... I wish you the best my friend, but I'm willing to put money out for you to get a nice 6.7...
Scott
02-01-2019, 08:23 PM
