After owning a 2006 F250 for 13 years from new I let it go after buying a Raptor. My son learned how to drive in that beast and after graduation he decided he wanted another 6.0 Power Stroke. He found his "dream" truck in a 2005 Expedition Limited, all black. It has lots of miles but was advertised as bulletproofed. I knew going into this that it's a crap shoot with these things, but when I checked out the truck I was surprised that it had a freshly swapped engine, which had to be less than a year old. Dealer was a small lot guy and couldn't tell me much about it, but I did notice it bounced around for about a year after being sold to a CarMax, so I'm guessing it had a major problem and was fixed by some dealer along the way. It has been running great - I verified it had studs, bulletproof EGR, and everything on it looked brand new. We had a few glow plugs fail over the last 6 months which I thought was odd. It also recently threw an ICP Sensor code.

Fast forward to last week, my son was driving from Denver to Southern California and after about 6 hours of easy highway driving it lost a good amount of power. He pulled to the side of the road and told me it was idling very rough, with massive vibration. He was a few miles from an exit in Gallup, NM so I told him to limp the thing. After driving it for a few minutes it died completely. Wouldn't turn over or anything. We ended up paying an auto transport to bring it to my home in Orange County. I started the troubleshooting hoping for the best. The codes it threw included ICP sensor (2284, 2285), Crank sensor 0336, cylinder 1 & 5 Contribution/Balance (0263, 0275), and cooling fan speed sensor 0528. I confirmed it would not turn over, even after charging up the batteries (less than 1 year old). I pulled all 8 glow plugs thinking hydrolock but that didn't make any difference. I then took off the belt and tried again - no luck. I then decided to pull some coolant to see what that looked like - it seemed fine. Then I pulled off the oil filter. First thing I thought was odd was that it was mostly dry and the bowl had no oil in it. I cut it open and noticed it is laced with copper. I then drained the oil and noticed a large amount of junk on the drain plug. The oil looks ok, but I don't think I would see anything if it was messed up.

I keep thinking maybe load test the battery and pull the starter but not sure it's worth the effort at this time (plus this wouldn't seem to be the problem given the way the engine died). I did measure the battery voltage when trying to crank the motor and it dropped to damn near 1 volt. I could hear the starter engage. Should I try and drop the oil pan to scope out what I can see on the bottom end of the engine? Or does this seem hopeless and our next move is to work on finding another engine? Not knowing who put the engine in, is there a chance it might be under warranty? I couldn't find any serial number but I'm not sure where to look. Any thoughts would be appreciated. In all my searches on "Seized 6.0 Power Stroke" I didn't find anyone that had what appeared to be a catastrophic failure.

Thanks!
RobW

 

Will it crank when you jumper the starter solenoid wire to the passenger battery (+) terminal?

EDIT - NM
I see you said you heard the starter engage.

Better question in post below.

Also, I would still charge and load test the batteries. Low voltage can most certainly shutdown an engine.

 

With the glow plugs removed, can you spin the engine at the front of the pulley?
Is coolant missing from the degas bottle?

 

Coolant level is spot on - at min when cold, so no loss of coolant over the last several months. I've not tried to spin the engine from the front. I did grab a long socket wrench but couldn't figure out how to get it on one of the 4 big bolts holding the pulley on. Should I pull the fan shroud to get access? I'll pull the batteries and get them tested. I'm thinking they are ok because they are relatively new and it took 8 hours on the charger to get them to full (6 amp charge rate). I just looked at the oil and it is good - at least no coolant in it.

 

IMO - no way to know if the batteries actually took a charge without a load test. Voltage alone certainly won't do it.

 

Pull the fan and the belt. Try to turn the motor clockwise with a long ratchet (18mm socket) on one of the 4 screws.

 

Crap load of iron, a crap load of copper/brass, and dry in the oil canister. It's either eaten the turbo shaft and bearings, or deep into the main and connecting rod bearings. If it's taken out the LPOP gears, it's probably a lifter that came apart, although I had marks on my LPOP gears from debris left in the engine during rebuild. That scratched a few bearings, but nothing like the quantity of metal you have in the filter and on the magnetic drain plug.

 

Judging by the description of events along with looking at the debris on the drain plug in the pictures provided above, my vote is the portion of the quote highlighted above. I agree with the others above, advising to attempt to spin the engine over by hand on the crank pulley with the belt removed to confirm the engine is in fact locked up. The question now becomes how much money and labor is the OP willing to invest in bringing this ride back to life, or simply cut his losses and move on with life and find another replacement vehicle?

 

After some additional internet digging I agree a dropped lifter would explain how the LPOP would be taken out. I am expecting the worst since the engine died while struggling to run and wasn't able to turn over after that event. It's hard to imagine that the battery could die in that moment too and that's why it won't turn over, but I do need to rule that out to be certain. The lesson for my son is a good one. Not knowing any background on a 6.0 truck before buying comes with risk. The thing that really sucks is not having any paperwork on the engine swap. I would guess it would be under warranty given that it must be less than 2 years old. I couldn't find the serial number on the engine either. I checked the oil out a bit yesterday and it doesn't look bad - I might run it through a mesh screen to see if there is anything in there. If I get the energy today I'll try and turn this thing over manually. But I'm weighing the value of investing all that time and energy if this is a worst case situation. But if I do take it all apart and find out that it is locked up I guess I won't need to spend the time putting it all back together.

On the financial side, this one is going to be more of an emotional decision than a $$ one. My son bought this truck specifically because he was looking for an '05 Excursion Limited with diesel in all black. Not many out there. So he's into this thing for about $30K after buying it and adding the bullet proof cooling kit, totally restored front suspension, tires, and a few little things. It needs further cosmetic clean up but it was on its way to be a very cool rig. He's got the cash to invest in it (pro athlete, but financially pretty frugal), so I'm guessing he's going to want to keep it over bailing to find another one. Hopefully I can confirm this motor is f'd (or not) today, but then the next step is to figure out what the next step is if it is a worst case deal. KDD, local rebuild, do the transmission at the same time, etc. This truck will be like many out there where the investment will end up being more than double the end value. But I believe this will be his dream truck at the end of the process and he will keep it forever. I'm just happy it isn't my money

Thanks for all the input!

 

Serial no. location.





Probably the designers were drunk when they decided on this place for the ser.no.

 

Or didn't want it altered easily.

 

Rob,

For what he has in it, it's still nothing compared to a new Black Label Navigator, and for its uniqueness. Add $20k for a well built replacement engine to have it done.

The only warning I would give is if is ever accident damaged, it would be totaled out by the insurance for what a new vehicle would be repaired; the threshold is low.

Nothing is bulletproof. It's reliability upgrades. And there are a lot of poorly done "Bulletproofed" engines out there.

 

Thanks for that serial number location. I took a few photos yesterday while hunting for it. Looks like I was in the right spot, just can't see the whole number. I'll try and get a wire brush on it.

 

I don't enjoy raining on anybody's parade at all. But based on the way you've described the events in excellent detail, I suspect the worst as well. And I'm sorry this has turned into a seemingly very expensive lesson for your son. As far as the batteries go, attempting to turn over any non running 6.0 or 7.3 diesel with even brand new fully charged batteries will deplete the charge very quickly. Persist in attempting to crank non running engine will burn the starter out along with the batteries. Ask me how I know, even though it's been years since I've gotten my hands dirty working on a 6.0. That said, I'm fairly certain that weak batteries are only a result of your issue, not the cause by what you describe.

He is young and has many life lessons ahead of him. After now turning wrenches in a dealership for North of thirty years for a living, I try to keep any sentimental value I have for any of my rides very guarded. During the years when I was wrenching on many of these 6.0 trucks, my wife made me buy a 2007 6.0 truck of our own because she loved the sound of a 6.0 diesel that she could easily recognize the sound of with her eyes closed and the truck a mile away. The hard decision I had, was to part with it to get into my 2016 back in 2015. My wife had the honor of doing the last drive in it, literally with tears coming from her eyes throughout the entire drive to its new owner at the time. When we dropped it off, even the new owner noticed my wife being visibly distraught about letting it go, which only likely boosted his confidence that he scored himself a very good example of a 6.0 truck. For the amount of down time it could potentially require when a major repair is needed, I just didn't feel inspired to getting into it on my own ride, even though my 6.0 never needed any of the usual 6.0 failures during my ownership. I now have a 2021 Lariat which I will likely keep for maybe another four years before I go into something new again. I don't mind doing oil changes and other light maintenance. But major unforseen repairs on my own ride, after fixing other people's rides for this long? No way.

 

Quick update on our Excursion. I've not been able to turn the engine over. Batteries test good, but I've not been able to manually try to turn it over yet. My son is willing to invest in a rebuilt engine, so we've been checking out various places. I'm super confused by the internet world saying certain builders suck, engines are crap, etc. I've spoke to Asheville Engines, Kill Devil Diesel, Dynamic Diesel, and DFC out of Canada. We have a local shop here in Orange County (CA) that told me he won't work with Asheville Engines, but he's a dealer for DFC. We've seen some negative feedback on some message boards about DFC. KDD and Dynamic Diesel have prohibitively long lead times. The other guys can turn around their engines in about a week. Price for each are all essentially close enough to not worry about that part. I'm leaning towards Asheville but I will need to find a local shop to do the install.

The Asheville guys asked me to confirm the type of HPOP in our Excursion. Evidently Ford ran the 2004 parts into the 2005 Excursion until they used up inventory. I found one post that said the cutover happened in January of 2005, which happens to be the build month of this truck. Given that the engine is not original I couldn't thing of any other way to confirm besides pulling the turbo. This looks like the '05 style pump to me (see attached photo). Would you guys agree?

I'm also curious about the origins of this engine. I spent some time trying to get a good shot of the serial number. Best I can tell it reads 2-01-06 on the lower part, 289896 across the middle, and 60 in the upper left corner and 11 in the upper right corner. I think this means it is not a Ford Remanufactured engine. The International sticker on the valve cover says 2005 model A325E.

We will go with a new long block since we have a lot of usable parts on the current engine. Am I overthinking which engine builder to use? We are going the route of o-ring heads, "stage 2" camshaft, KC turbo stage 1, 155/stock injectors, 100 lb valve springs, OEM Ford head gasket (although I was told the Mahle gaskets are just as good), and coated bearings. Not looking for a race truck, but one that has a little more juice than stock.

I'm very appreciative of the thoughtful responses to my situation I've got from this board!

Thanks,
RobW