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Engine oil cooler

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Old Aug 9, 2020 | 01:24 AM
  #1  
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Engine oil cooler

Good evening. I had my 2004 6.0 "bullet proofed" in 2012 with head stud, gasket, etc. at which time a new engine oil cooler was installed along with a coolant filter. I have been noticing that my EOT and ECT delta has been slowly creeping back up to ~20'F. A couple weekends ago I was towing my travel trailer and the delta widened to ~30'F while towing uphill.

I am thinking it's time to replace the engine oil cooler again, unfortunately. The local Ford dealership tells me $350 for diagnostic and ~$2200 to replace the engine oil cooler. They told me that I can skip the diagnostic if I so choose to but they won't guarantee that will fix the problem. I am leaning towards skip the diagnostics to save $350 and just have them replace the engine oil cooler. Are there anything else that can contribute to the widening EOT & ECT delta? Do you recommend that I have them run the diagnostic test first? If so for what am I looking for?

Regards,
 
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Old Aug 9, 2020 | 04:50 AM
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I would first try to flush the oil cooler against the flow direction of the coolant.
Here you can see like I do it:

 
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Old Aug 9, 2020 | 05:00 AM
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Save some money and do the delta test correctly. Bring engine up to normal temp. Find a nice flat long section of
road with no stope. Be sure truck is not loaded and drive 60 MPH. That is when you want to be looking at the numbers.

If you find that your numbers are not looking good at that point I would do a full flush with chemicals and once that is
done I would drive it for a week so that any trash you have kicked loose gets caught in the cooler. The dealership will
not take the extra steps to do the heavy cleaning like this. Once your ready to replace the oil cooler I would also back
flush the radiator as crap has been known to hide in the top tank and get back into a clean system over time.

There are some good how to details in the Tech Folder. Also an oil cooler is not really a hard job. The bigest part is
the cooling system flush. Don't skimp by not removing both block drains. SrMasterTech on Youtube shows a good
way to get a ot of the crap out when doing a flush.
 
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Old Aug 9, 2020 | 11:18 AM
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Good morning and thanks for the replies.

Originally Posted by Hartwig
I would first try to flush the oil cooler against the flow direction of the coolant.
Here you can see like I do it:

https://youtu.be/zYrpETwb-WE
Hartwig, do you actually remove all those parts including the radiator, etc?

Regards,
 
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Old Aug 9, 2020 | 03:24 PM
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Originally Posted by yhc
Good morning and thanks for the replies.



Hartwig, do you actually remove all those parts including the radiator, etc?

Regards,
You do not have to remove the radiator. It is important that you remove the plugs on both sides of the block to flush out the dirt. I used ball valves instead of plugs. On the passenger's side a hose for extension because the starter sits before the plug. If you like I can send you pictures of my system, but I am still abroad ( https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...s-on-6-0s.html ) for 3 weeks. Most of them use a special valve, with thread metric M16x1.5, which is too small for me, so I find my solution more robust. I remove a hose from the inline coolant filter, open the ball valves, and flush backwards from this point.
 
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Old Aug 9, 2020 | 03:57 PM
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If you do the flushing the way that SRMasterTech shows you get a lot of turbulence and stuff washed out so much better.



After your done with the flushing you then do the distilled water to wash out any thing that is in the water from the hose.
I think I did 4 or 5 fill and dump to wash all the hose water out.
 
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Old Aug 9, 2020 | 06:28 PM
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I bought this to do my backflush. It's easy to do, but time consuming. I added a air line in the system to to "hit it" with air occasionally to loosen up and of the crud in the cooler.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/392325480253

then I poured CLR into the cooler, let it sit 20 minutes, flushed, did CLR again, flushed, ran restore + in it, flushed twice, then did 4 fills of distilled, then ELC coolant. Deltas prior were 20° solo and around 28 to 30 pulling my TT, after 8° solo and 15 to 17 pulling my TT in the foothills. Flat ground I am less than 10° pulling. BTW, my TT weighs 9500 pulled by my 2003 Excursion 2wd.

 
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