Hello. I new to the site and new to the IDI fords. With that said, I have always thought the bullnose was a great looking truck so I bought one with the 6.9 and have a lot of questions. The truck I bought is an 85 f250 with the extended cab and long bed. Everything on the truck looked really good from the body being straight to there not being oil spots where the truck was kept. The gauges all work except for the RPMs that the owner said just quit and the EGT/Boost gauge that came with the Banks turbo kit. The truck was a manual with the 4 speed but was swapped to the ZF 5 speed which is something I was thinking about doing until I found out it was already done. The owner told me the Banks turbo was from the factory which I question because I thought Ford was using a turbo kit from ATS? I have already purchased some ISSpro gauges to replace the broken EGT/Boost gauge because the owner said he had turned up the fuel and I think the gauge would just take some of the worry away. But what amount of boost should I be looking for and how would one properly tune the fuel to air without just dumping money out of my exhaust? I don't like blasting smoke but would also like a little power if that's possible. The owner said the truck came out of California and I crawled under to look. There is so little of rust that I had to grab her.

Now on to the problem which I might have already found the answer to on this site. (oil cooler) I've owned the truck for only a week now and I really like it but, from the time that I was looking over the truck on purchase day and a week later to now, the truck has used every bit of a quart of oil if not more and I've only gone about 200 miles. I think that is a little too much oil consumption in just 200 miles. And its not leaking in my driveway. From what I found on this site was that the oil cooler was the problematic piece. How do I go about troubleshooting this problem the correct way?

And thanks for letting me join the site! Hopefully you guys like the truck as much as I do.

 

Your radiator would be full of oil. Your definitely burning the oil, how bad is the blow by?

 

Checking blow by just by flipping the oil cap over? Also I have not checked the radiator yet. I got home with the kids and jumped straight on to here.

 

X2, oil would be in the Radiator, and Coolant Bottle.
Went through that little fiasco almost 2 yrs ago.

Oil could be going past the Rings, or Valve guides.
Turbo could be sucking some oil also.
200 miles is a bunch of oil.
My 86 uses a qt about every 600 miles. But at 304K.
And she is naturally exasperated.

How many miles on her? That is really a clean truck,
especially the engine. Looks like you did good.
Turbo on an 85 is aftermarket, my 85 has the same one.
as yours.
When you pull the lid off the filter box, there is a K&N filter.
Mine was dirty, scrunched and twisted. Tried to find a paper
one through cross referencing at NAPA. No luck. Ordered
a new K&N through Summit Racing. Think it was $57, and
was shipped from Banks.


Charlie

 

You're correct on the turbo being aftermarket, but some dealers did sell them with a kit already installed, kind of like they used to do dealer a/c kits. Probably how the original owner bought it and that's where the confusion comes from.

Looks great! Cool that you were able to find a manual/4x4/turbo 6.9, pretty sought after truck. Hope you didn't have to pay too much for it!

What kind of oil are you running? I know it seems silly but for some reason I, along with other users have had odd oil consumption issues with rotella, I prefer mobile delvac, others delo.

Also if you're not aware a fl-1995 motorcraft oil filter (7.3 powerstroke filter) will screw right on and work for $10, but requires am extra quart of oil.

Pull the intake hat and see how much oil is in the intake. Chances are she's pretty wet.

Oh and also, banks recommend you turn the fuel up two flats from stock to get any significant power gain from their turbo setup. It's probably fine but a pyro and boost gauge darn sure shouldn't hurt so it's good that you ordered them. I've heard good things about isspro. Stay away from glowshift, worst gauges on the market.

 

welcome to FTE.
as the guys said, that is an aftermarket banks turbo, not factory installed. but it may have been dealer installed.
i am wondering if it has synthetic oil in it?
my 88 with the same turbo will use a quart of oil every 300 miles with synthetic oil, but switch back to regular oil and it drops to around 1 quart every 1,000 miles.

 

So I went out and tried to take a couple more pictures. So the radiator is full of green but I would think that the oil would settle to the bottom over night. Also the radiator overfill tank is still pretty full even after the truck cooling down over night. Everything is pretty wet right now from a storm passing through last night but I plan on moving the truck and draining both the radiator and oil to see what they look like and replace with fresh. I figured I would have to drain them anyways to replace the oil cooler. I have not looked inside the intake yet for oil nor done the blow by check but I plan to. I just gotta get the kids down for naps first.

So would it be smart to go ahead and buy a new/refurbished oil cooler and o-rings to get rid of the worry or just clean this one and put new o-rings on?

The previous owner claimed the truck only had 133K miles on it and that everything was original but I cant really prove that.

 

Another thing some users have noticed, if you fill it all the way up to the full mark, it'll use that up fairly quickly but once it moves to the bottom of the crosshatch section it stays.

Oil floats on water, seems like your oil cooler is fine.

 

So I might be able to say that my oil cooler is ok. But I didnt have any liquid in my overflow tank before and now its a hair from being cold. So where did the extra liquid come from?

 

Let's back up just a bit................. You stated it "used" a quart.

Did you change the oil and filter and bring the oil up to the full mark and then drive 200 miles?

or

Did you just add a quart of oil and bring it up to the full mark?

Hobo

 

I didnt change anything yet. The oil was at the full line when I went to look at the truck before buying it. Now after buying and owning for a week and 200 miles worth of driving, The oil is lower (almost to the add mark) and the empty radiator overflow tank is now almost full. Radiator tank was empty when I was looing over the truck before purchasing.

 

any rust on the dipstick? any condensation in the oil filler cap?

IF it is making Water and loosing oil, it would seem like something is going on.

my experience tells me if you look hard enough for problems you will generally find them.

you could pressurize the cooling system and verify that it holds pressure.

 

if you had oil going into the coolant, it would look like light chocolate milk. and it will not separate after sitting overnight.

the full coolant tank could be something as simple as the guy filled it up after you looked at it and before you bought it.

 

yes sir could be...... if a quart of oil was in the Coolant I'm pretty sure we would have seen it in the picture of the radiator filler neck.... I don't see any.

 

Ok so this could be good news and that the previous owner just put too much oil in? Also I've taken a picture of the dip stick with oil on it as it has now sat all night at most of the day so its cold. Is this around the correct fill level for being cold? Should I just continue to drive the truck and monitor the oil? I was going to take the truck up to my fathers to go hunt but the trip is a little over 2 hours/140 miles. Think it will make the trip? And THANKS! to everyone with the help on this so far.