The OE short block maybe perfectly fine. The only way to know for sure is getting the heads off. You could get the $2500 back just parting it out.

If it was by me I'd take that chance.

 

True. Guess parting it out is a viable option, just a potentially time consuming one. But you're right, it would be a way to recoup my money and get out of it if things go south.

Guess I'll give it a shot. What's the worst that could happen? I suspect that if I'm patient, I could find a donor engine should the need arise, and still come in about 10k in parts. We'll see.

As for the heads, what would determine whether or not they're salvageable?

 

 

 

Is there a generally accepted maximum depth to which the heads can safely be machined? I see guys talking about machining .003-.004", is that about the max?

 

 

Both Ford and Int say the minimum thickness of the head is 3.74". Some Ford heads out of the box are a little shy of that. Some people have machined 0.008" under that spec . Me, I'm holding to the 3.74" spec as there has never been a disclosure why, just online speculation.

If you go under the 3.74" thickness the rockers come closer to the cam which brings the pushrods into the lifters more. To compensate the machinist can grind off the same amount removed under the 3.74" spec on the valve stem tips to equalize. The same thing has to be done if the valves are recessed deeper than the OE maximum. Any good machinist realizes this and adjusts.

 

Won't the seller allow you to do some basic checks before buying? Like listen for an even crank, or plug in a good scanner for a compression check, so you at least know what you're getting into?

 

 

I think AK, you are only looking at the one truck, and probably only trucks up in AK? Just in case anyone reads your thread, or you might be interested: I have a good friend that is going to dump super-cheap a Very clean rust-free CA original owner, F350 4x4 srw 6.0 with one bad cylinder... PM me for more info. Would really like to see this go to a deserving 6.0 Brother...
Scott

 

I'm late to this party but after 37 posts someone ^^ is thinking the same. I'd definitely want to do a compression check to see if they're all even. Atleast a cylinder balance crank test with a scanner (IDS).
But 2500 is worth the gamble to me. Buying any 6.0 I would factor in the idea of a $5k budget for possible repairs. You may just have to replace a cracked EGR cooler and get off easy but you won't know without some testing.

 

LOL, we got great techs here. I've often wondered how some of them can get motivated to answer the same questions over and over and over, but greatly appreciate that they do. I can understand why they want to just dive headfirst into the fray sometimes. I, on the other hand, don't know much, but can identify with the poor guys with the broken trucks for whom saving a buck is critical, and every now and then, I say something that makes sense to those guys.

While 2500 is a great price for an 06, AK is an issue, maybe good and bad. Bad because there's prolly a limited inventory of used parts around and it costs big time to ship anything in (ran a hotshot up there in '17, 2500 miles of nothing but beautiful country). Bad because that's some rough country and trucks get beat up bad and driven way past the salvage point for us - some of them run non-stop 24/7 for months so they don't freeze up. I'd be wary of buying any used work truck from AK. Good because I bet you can get good prices for used parts from popular cars/trucks, and prolly sell them faster than down here. Based on that, I'd buy, but not for more than I could part it out for, and prolly assume that is what I was going to do.

I thought of the EGR too, but assume the lack of cabin heat rules that out. But I don't know.

 

The truck is a 2006 so it has a built in hour meter. Devide the miles by the hours and it will give you the average speed mph of the truck. Many trucks will be 35, some that ran highway constantly may be 45 or 55 depending. Some 20. If it works out - negative then you know it was an idle queen.

The no heat thing in my opinion is they're always running it low on coolant so it's not getting flow to the heater core or a blend door is broke. You'd have to feel the in/out hoses to see if they're getting hot. Or if they were dumping plain water in it the system could be rusted to hell and have a blocked oil cooler, heater core, and egr cooler cracked because of it. Won't know until you dive in...... head first!

 

Don't mean to hijack the thread, but you bring up a topic - my hour meter has been pegged at 9999 since I got the truck with 144k miles on it. I guess that's it's upper limit, but I can't believe this truck idled that much - I now have 244k and it hasn't given me major problems. I'm thinking the hour meter isn't accurate. Anyone else ever see that? And, I wonder why E450s don't have hour meters? My shuttle bus probably did idle for thousands of hours (it was used to shuttle cruise ship passengers about a quarter mile from the parking lot all day). Runs great, but I'd love to know the hours.

And I've had blend door problems, but they always made my truck blow hot air. And even without the heat on, the cab stays pretty warm from radiant heat off the floorboards.