I have a 2004 E350 van that has antifreeze in the engine oil. I put two new batteries in the truck and it didn't want to crank but when it finally did it shot antifreeze out of the v-band clamps around the turbo. I'm trying to find information on how to diagnose to see where the antifreeze is coming from. I believe it is the EGR cooler but I want to confirm all this before I pull the truck apart. The truck has 111000 miles.

 

sorry you've not gotten a response and wish I could help. I have an e450 that probably has the same problem. Overheated while driving and only turns over real slow with new batteries.

 

Pull the glow plugs and get that coolant out first.
Then place the cooling system under a vacuum and see if it holds. Likely it won't as you already have coolant going where it does not belong.
You can pull the EGR valve for a look at the intake below it and if you find it wet and/or clean it is likely the EGR cooler is where things are coming from.
Once you know that then you have to decide if you are also going to do the head gaskets also. So with the EGR cooler you will be doing an oil cooler.
Then you could just pull the heads and get them back into shape and install ARP studs and a BPD EGR cooler and call everything good.

I would start by taking a look in the Tech Folder for the info on failed oil cooler and head gaskets.

 

thank you for the response. I never thought of putting the cooling system into a vacuum. I'm sure I can rig something up from my cooling system pressure tester with all the different adapters and a hand powered mityvac. Unfortunately I got this truck as a basket case and took on the project because it has low miles and it's in very good condition. The previous owner said it was running hot and their mechanic decided that it needed head gaskets. Had the heads machined and put new Fel-Pro head bolts and head gaskets in. Unfortunately this guy was an old school mechanic and I don't think he understood anything about replacing the EGR cooler and engine oil cooler. So now I'm trying to work backwards and diagnosis the problem before tearing it apart. Thank you so much for the good advice so far and I will update you as I go. Thursday I got a price $335 for the OEM engine oil cooler from Ford. Is this a good price?

 

A vacuum will make is less likely (unlikely) to push any more coolant into the cylinders.
If you have a compressor you could use one of the vacuum bleeders for the vacuum.
What I have used is a Radvac to pull the vacuum when changing coolant. I also found a
small leak doing that at the blue hose. It took just a tiny wiggle to seat it and fix that.

 

I am trying to get prepared in case I have to do the engine oil cooler and EGR Delete or EGR cooler. What gaskets and parts will I need besides the EGR cooler and engine oil cooler if I was going to do that job? I'm thinking the glow plugs are probably screwed up from having antifreeze in the cylinders also

 

Both coolers have install kits with all the gaskets.
I think that the oil cooler kit also has the EGR gasket set and the turbo set in it.

If you split the kits up you need a kit for the EGR cooler and one for the Turbo
and lastly one for the oil cooler along with right and left glow plug harnesses.
Lastly 8 glow plugs. But like I said there are going to be some gaskets in the
oil cooler kit if you go with a Ford kit and that is what I would do with one exception.
I would use the BPD EGR cooler if your is the square one. If you have the round
one then you should be ok going back to that one.

I would order my parts from Ed or Scott over at >>> https://www.ficmrepair.com
They sell Ford parts at a lesser cost. They also have the full Ford warrantee.

 

Is there a way to figure out if I have the round or Square EGR cooler before taking the truck apart. I'm thinking about ordering all the parts but I would need if I have to do the whole job so that way if I start taking it apart I can finish the job all in one shot. I hate taking something apart then waiting for the parts that I need. It's easier to finish the job while it is fresh in my mind how it came apart.

 

All sarcasm aside, just look at it. You can see it from up high on the passenger side.

 

He is right.
Just get above the passenger side fender and look over to the back side near the turbo. You will see below and next to the intake
runner. Your going to see round or square. If you see noting it's been deleted.
The top one in this image is the round one and the bottom is the square one.

 

You have the square EGR cooler. I am 100% sure on that without fail. Round EGR coolers are used, only on 2003 model year engines for the F-Series applications. Ford did not use the 6.0L diesel in E-Series applications until 2004 model years. It is also worth noting if yours is a 2004 model year, it is also the only model year using the early style high pressure oil pump. If you are purchasing your oil and EGR coolers from Ford, you will have everything you need except for intake gaskets. And since you are working on an E-Series, you will definitely need the four exhaust manifold to up-pipe nuts and bolts as well, since you will be removing the turbo up-pipe for the access needed to slide the intake manifold out through the doghouse opening. The Ford part numbers for those nuts bolts I believe are -W300051 and -W300031.

 

m-chan thanks for that input.

 

just wanted to let everyone know the truck is back together and running good. I use the OEM engine oil cooler from Ford and a Spectra aftermarket EGR cooler. New OEM glow plugs as well. I decided since coolant contamination is the major culprit in EGR cooler and engine oil cooler failure to install a coolant filter from diesel site. It goes on the passenger side lower frame rail and since everything was a part that wasn't very difficult to install not that it would be anyway. With the air tube going to the air filter removed you could easily get to the lines you need to tap into. We removed the glow plugs in order to get all the antifreeze out of the cylinders which really wasn't much at this point somehow. The driver side glow plugs are a real pain in the butt but with some patients at a small quarter inch Drive wrench it can be done. The Ford manual says to remove the engine to replace the driver side glow plugs. Good thing we removed them because they were Autolite crap. Friends don't let friends install Autolite glow plugs. The truck took a long time to start part of that reason was because we didn't fill engine oil up all the way. I was going to due to oil changes since I thought there might be some antifreeze in there so I was being cheap and only put about 12 quarts in there. I guess we weren't getting oil pressure to run the injection. It finally started but we noticed it took a lot of cranking time before the engine would fire even when warm. Moral of the story is make sure your oil it's at the proper level. This truck starts up very easily when cold and I'm very happy with it so far. There was a lot of smoke coming out of the exhaust even after this was all done and the engine was warm especially after revving it up. It had me worried but now after running the engine several times it has cleared up. I believe a combination of antifreeze being in the exhaust and old fuel from this truck sitting for years caused this issue. The old air filter was completely clogged with soot. I got a new air filter but I have been so busy so I still have to install that. Next is the hood latch front bumper horn and Grille. Forgot to mention that the other problem with starting the engine was that the new batteries that I had bought three months ago or not very happy. I load tested them and one was completely shot and the other one was only holding about four hundred amps even after charging both of them. They were covered under warranty and no problem since. What other o-ring ripped going to the engine oil cooler which was also contributing to the hard starting. I got a new one from Ford which cost $23 too much and that fix the leak. I believe it was yellow. when the job was all done before we started it will you pressure test of the cooling system to make sure that we didn't have the same issue we started with. So far everything is been great. Once I get the front end of the truck cosmetically together I'll bring it out for a road test. Right now I have so many things going on and this is going to be a spare vehicle so the rest will be finished only when time allows.

 

Very good, glad you got her sorted out brother!

 

WooHoo! Congrats. Do you know if this one overheated, or did the coolers just fail without overheating (if that's possible).One of these days, I've got to get back on my ambulance that blew up, but it definitely overheated. But, my luck it'll take head gaskets, which absolutely means pulling the engine on the E-series, which is prolly more than I can do.