'05 6.0 SD SRW replacement motor in 2011 blackwater with Studs. Run one of Matts SRL tunes with a power max turbo. 65k miles on the motor.SLowly loosing coolant lately however no obvious signs that its coming out the tail pipe. Getting pressure out of the degas bottle after cool down with some oily slime on the underside.Yesterday no heat at idle was the final kiss of death.I was in denial after all I have ARP studs and its been “bulletproof’d”!Everything I have read points to a blown head gasket.Going to change the degas cap in a last ditch effort.Any reason to believe it might be something else ?No coolant on the ground, can’t smell any. Eng temps and coolant temps all normal. Best guess it’s going through 500ml on every fill up. I'll get some carbon strips to confirm they inevitable.

Anyone have a good link to a head gasket thead ? I was suprised I didn't see anything in the tech folder or any recent posts. SOB I had a chance to sell it when I bought my new 6.7 last year. I guess this is payback.

 

You need to do a proper diagnosis first. Slimey oil in the resevoir points to a ruptured oil cooler. Oil pressure is far greater than coolant and will get pushed through a cracked oil cooler right into the coolant passage causing pressure and contamination.
And to add, if its slimey diesel fuel then you may have a cracked head, injector bore which then I'd start checking cylinders 5 & 7 on the passenger side. Again like oil pressure, fuel pressure is way higher than coolant so if theres a crack the pressure will get pushed to the coolant passage.
Any pictures? Have you done a driving coolant pressure test yet?

 

You could have a very small crack in the radiator tank causing the loss AND a blown oil cooler.

I was recently losing coolant, most probable cause by laying on the radiator and a couple hairline cracks for a really slow loss.... I was worried of the same thing!

 

Oil cooler, haven't really thought of that. I did replace it a couple years back and don't see any loss of oil. Deltas are still within the norm. Would that explain the coolant loss ?

The coolant in the degas bottle has traces of slimy oil mostly just under the coolant pressure cap. . If the rad was the issue I would suspect to see some coolant or white residue somewhere.

I haven't done a pressure check yet. Its been cold up here lately and haven't been driving the truck. What pressures should I expect to see ? What concerns me is when the truck sits overnight there is still a lot of pressure in the degas tank when I unscrew the coolant cap the next day which I don't think is normal..

I don't smell any diesel in the coolant nor do I see any traces that would indicate a fuel leak. I keep a close eye on temps, truck hasn't overheated or been subject to any really high EGTs.

I'll get the carbon strips and report back. Thanks for the responses.

 

I sound like a broken record. Nothing is bullet proof, and head gasket integrity is all about the package, head surface, deck surface, cleanliness, gasket, fastener tightening, and maybe the fastener itself. But people have gone for very long miles with stock head bolts so they should not be considered the "primary" failure. Studs are not a cure-all.

Hope it's not he head gaskets and more to what Pete mentioned.

 

Were the heads surfaced when it was studded? If not I would not be surprised at all if the head gaskets were blown.

 

But, I wouldn't jump immediately to head gaskets even though the no heat is pretty common to them. I was losing coolant and it ended up being the weep hole on the water pump. Never saw coolant on the ground or any traces. It was behind the water pump pulley and was blown around and evaporated so there really was no trace.

 

 

Its been in the -20c up here in the North lately so once the weather turns around I will dive into it more. I topped up the coolant and the heat returned, truck still fires up and runs like there is nothing wrong. The post was more of a fishing exercise to see if anyone else had similar issue and it wasn't head gaskets.. Thanks Chris for chimming in and giving me something else to consider. The water pump has not been replaced so more than likely could be the cause. There isn't a lot of oil in the coolant just more like a slimmy residue which maybe after 6 years isn't that uncommon. I have been waiting for the tall tail sign of coolant blowing out around the degas cap and that hasn't happened yet.

Blackwater did the motor so I couldn't speak to what was done to the heads or how well they prep'd the motor. I realize nothing is bullet proof nor do I expect the motor to run forever. I was hoping with it being studded and running Matt's tune that I would get some longevity out of it. Once you get a taste of tuning these trucks you can't go back to stock.

Appreciate everyone's time.

 

 

In my experience with race motors surface prep and gasket type made a bigger difference than studs vs bolts. I don't believe in doing things like going full throttle to "clean it out" or getting a tune on a slow heavy truck. Me and a friend have over 160k on our bone stock '06s with stiction being the only recent issue...we simply drive them normally (no hot rodding) and tow with them. We're both on original HGs and coolers.

 

 

To me there isn't a comparison between the two. Good surface prep gives OEM performance. Bad prep, bad performance.
Studs allow you to enhance the OEM performance and extend the capabilities.

 

Sullyt,

Did you have a problem after using the ARP studs? I agree with everything Jack says and I may have put too much $$ in to "bullet proofing" mine. I was curious what type of problem if any you had after your bolts were replaced with studs. I have way too much in my truck and this is cray (but I am military and spent a lot of time deployed) but mine is a 2004 F350 Super Duty with SRW and only has 22,000 (yep, twenty two thousand miles on it) on the odometer. It is right because I bought it new and immediately did EGR delete, dual coolant filtration systems, dual remote oil filtration, ARP studs, blue spring kit, FASS Titanium fuel separator, Banks Big Hoss Bundle, Volant Cold Air Intake, BP Diesel water pump, BP Diesel bypass oil cooler, Hydraulic Steering from PCS, Fabtech 8" lift, Warn 16.5 on front, for 10K on back, Air compressor and tank under the bed, 4000 watt inverter, and the list goes on. None of which is relevant to my question but I have so much tied up in this truck I can't afford to have anything happen now so was wondering what issues you may have had. Thanks. Bill

 

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...