I have a crack in my passenger side rocker box and I'm trying to figure out the cause. The truck was studded by a previous owner so, I don't have any paperwork from that work. However, I can tell that it does have ARP head studs, bulletproof brand oil cooler, FICM etc.

After I bought it, I had a bunch of work done. ICP, IPR, VGT solenoid, 8 new Ford OEM injectors and other general maintenance. After the injectors were done, I noticed a small but annoying oil leak. I traced it back to the valve cover and called the shop that did the work. They replaced the gasket and thought the problem was fixed. Nope. Still leaking. So, I brought it back. They took a closer look and found a hairline crack in the rocker box. Their assessment was that the head stud was over torqued and caused the crack.

I talked to the shop owner and he told me they noticed some of the threads were striped in the rocker box when they tried to put the valve cover back on. So, they helicoiled a few and used "a longer bolt".

So, I'm trying to figure out my next move with this truck. Has anyone ever had this happen? Will the cack gets worse and ultimately fail, or will it just be an annoying leak?

I want to give the shop the benefit of the doubt, but do you think this could have been caused by over torquing the valve cover bolt or sloppy helicoil work? Or, do you think their assessment is correct and the head stud was over torqued?

The crack is running vertically between the left head stud and the glow plug harness

2003 F350 6.0

 

I've helicoiled several of my valve cover bolts over the years that were over torqued by tech's using air tools in the early days and NEVER had one crack like that. Typically the aluminum threads just pull out when the valve cover bolts are over torqued and a helicoil is an EASY and reliable fix. It's really hard to say what made the crack, but I doubt it was done by the helicoil work. The helicoil itself is so close to the drill size used to repair that bolt that I don't even have to drill the hole insert the coil and it's an excellent fit. It's possible that the stud was over torqued and/or torqued incorrectly or that the head is warped in such a way that the rocker box didn't fit on it perfectly when it was torqued. It's just really hard to say. It is, after all, cast aluminum. You're not going to be able to put this off on the shop that did the work on the valve cover gaskets. It's just too much of a stretch.

 

That's a hard call as to what caused that. It's not direct to a fastener, but in between. The head studs do not directly compress the aluminum carrier; steel posts are cast into the carrier to carry that clamping load. If there was some hard debris under the steel post, there could have been side loading and canting of the post, distorting the aluminum carrier. But thinking about it more, my guess would be the cord gasket between the head and aluminum carrier was out of the groove; there's a bend there, and when tightening down, the high clamping load stressed the carrier. The massive force on the steel post would anchor the surrounding area of the carrier.

If that crack progresses, it's probably heading to the GP connector hole, where it will stop.

A replacement of the carrier would require the head to be removed and a new head gasket. Before that, if it were mine, I would clean the aluminum with acetone, abrade it with Scotchbrite, and do a layover with JBWeld to band-aid seal the area. JBWeld has some petroleum-resistant epoxies, but one could also try a petroleum-resistant silicone from Permatex. You would be "scabbing" over the crack. If you wanted to scab it over from the inside, I would only use silicone; if it fails, you don't want hard particles of epoxy going through the oil pump.

Anyway, my swag. Would you mind if I used the image in the future?

 

Thanks for the info guys! Just to be clear, I'm not trying to pin this on the shop. I just want to figure out what is responsible for the crack and fix the problem. If the shop made a mistake, I'll show them proof and I think they'll fix it. They have been good so far, so I'd expect them to stand behind this if it was in fact their work that caused the problem.

@TooManyToys. They said the crack seems to go into the head stud hole. I had them slap some JB weld in there to try and stop the leak. No luck. Yes, feel free to use the image.

At this point the engine has a little over 200k miles. I really don't want to spend over $4k to have a small oil leak fixed. I'm considering just pulling the trigger on a crate engine. Still contemplating that $15k bill

 

@TooManyToys. I just noticed you signature, "Don't ever buy a Ford 6.0 Remanufactured Motor." Why is that?

 

In my signature is the link to my YouTube channel, hunt for the 6.0 Forensics vid.

Do you have a picture towards the top of the carrier so we can see what the mechanic was saying it came from the stud mounting?

 

@TooManyToys. Wow! That was a great video. Now I'm reconsidering a Ford reman!

Unfortunately I don't have any other pictures. The shop owner shot a video, but I didn't get a copy of it.

I took it for a hard test drive yesterday. It didn't seem to leak more, just the normal 3 - 4 drops on the ground when I shut it off. Hopefully the rack stopped and won't get any worse.

 

I know the plant that did my engine is no longer in operation. However, I still would not touch one from Ford. They should have been on top of the supplier situation, knowing the product being sold at the dealership. This was not a one-off situation; I’ve got too many mechanics from fleets who contacted me who used them and saw them fail. $12k is too much money for a company and much more for an individual to put at risk.

 

I think I would use a Dremel and go down so that you had a quarter
inch of clean aluminum on both sides of the crack and then refill that
with the JB Weld after of course cleaning up as much oil as possible.
you don’t have to go deep just enough to scruff off the top layer of
aluminum oxide and expose some fresh aluminum to glue to.