I have a quite interesting issue with my 6.9l engine. I started to take it apart to find the water leaks, water / white smoke comes out of the exhaust, water also mange to sneak into the oil.

I suspected that it was just a wasted head gasket, but starting to tear the engine apart I noticed that 5 of the 8 push rods where well not where they are supposed to be <!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype id="_x0000_t75" coordsize="21600,21600" o:spt="75" oreferrelative="t" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" filled="f" stroked="f"> <v:stroke joinstyle="miter"/> <v:formulas> <v:f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"/> <v:f eqn="sum @0 1 0"/> <v:f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"/> <v:f eqn="prod @2 1 2"/> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"/> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"/> <v:f eqn="sum @0 0 1"/> <v:f eqn="prod @6 1 2"/> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"/> <v:f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"/> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"/> <v:f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"/> </v:formulas> <vath o:extrusionok="f" gradientshapeok="t" o:connecttype="rect"/> <o:lock v:ext="edit" aspectratio="t"/> </v:shapetype><v:shape id="_x0000_i1025" type="#_x0000_t75" alt="" style='width:12pt; height:12pt'> <v:imagedata src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\rh06\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_im age001.gif" o:href="http://images.ford-trucks.com/forums/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif"/> </v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]-->. They seems to almost slipped of the 'cam' in some way not completely but slightly, I guess it means that they opened the valves a little later and not as much as they are supposed to as well as closed them a little to early. Fixing it is easy, just putting them back in palce but has anyone seen this before? Good ideas of how to prevent this happening again are more then welcome

Here is a picture of 2 of the push rods, one in place and one that is not where its supposed to be.




Thanks in advance for any ideas.

 

What do the rocker assemblies look like for wear..... there is only about 35 thou of recovery (expansion) in the lifter to take up wear/slack. Lifters may be worn internally also check the roller bearings on them. Cam may be worn too....... One other question is the copper end of the push rod to the top.

 

This is not a good thing have you found your water problem are they connected.

 

Thanks for the replies!

Have spent some more time in the garage now.

All rockers have tear down around 7 to 12 thou (looks like it have not measured), far less then the 35 thou at least.
Looks like all the push rods have been trough a smaller war as well, all of them not just the five that was a bit in the wrong place.

Picture of the teared part of the rocker and the thing holding it there.


Will do a crack indication test for the heads tomorrow, did not find any traces of water leaked in to the cylinders, All of them had the same nice black carbon stain on them and the head gasket looked fine.

Anyone got a good idea of how the water could get into the exhaust? When i start the truck it spits out water in the exhaust, and after a while (when hot) white smoke. What confuses me is that the white smoke decreases when I rev then engine. Cooling water becomes low (engine overheating) after around 20-30 minutes of running time, so the water goes somewhere and it's not leaking out on the ground.

I have an idea of how water sometimes has managed its way into the engine oil. Broken rubber ring on what I think is the crankcase ventilation in the back part of the engine under the air intake.

 

You may have a pinhole in cylinder wall.

 

Old Dodges w/ Cummins will do this pretty often if you don't adjust the valves every 50,000 miles. I have an old 93 Dodge with 130,000 miles, about a month or two ago it started making the most awful racket, thought I had dropped a valve, push rod slipped out from under the rocker and was bent. I put a new push rod in it and adjusted the valves.

 

How did the intake manifold gasket look?

Although there is no coolant in the intake, there are several openings into the coolant passages in the head that the intake gasket blocks off.




You need a set of 7.3 style rockers, the 6.9 style was prone to wear where they pivot.

http://www.dps-performance.com/Ford/idi/idi_rockers.htm

 

The intake manifold gasket looked perfectly fine, don't think any water slipped in there. Have not figured out where the coolant water goes yet, will replace the gaskets with fresh ones regardless and see if it's better. Going to take a closer look at the cylinder walls as well.
By the way, the heads where in perfect condition, tested them earlier today.

Switch to 7.3 style rockers, do you know where I can buy them? and preferably push rods as well. These engines are not to common around here so I will have to order from the states regardless.

 

Over reving will sling a pushtube in a heartbeat. Valve springs get tired after so many hours also which doesn't help.

Hydraulic lifters can fail and cause them to get pitched. I never have liked hydro lifters. I would rather adjust valves every so often.

 

Check out online Ford dealers....... for parts normally they will ship overseas.

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The steel rocker portion may show little wear, but how much is worn off the post.

On Dave's pic of the head there are no frost plugs installed in the coolant holes shown... most do now don't they Dave.

Did you drain the coolant from the engine before disassembly or was the head gasket rotton .......

 

Also, when the push rods jump off like that and stick out, does the pistion not hit the valves due to the very close tolerance between pistion and head.???

 

None of mine had plugs there, just blocked off by the intake manifold gasket.

When I blew the intake gasket from high boost, that was where the boost was getting into the cooling system at.

Never really looked at those ports till then, and still had to scratch my head for a couple hours before I put it all together as to what was going on.

Piston to valve contact is easy to get.
Piston crown and head have the thickness of the head gasket between them.
If the valves are open at TDC, contact and custom push rods is the result.
Looks like this,



Those are some expensive push rods, about 2000 dollars each.

Also must be installed in pairs.

 

To day i will put my engine together again, dont have time to wait for new rockers so the old ones goes in again but just for now, will order new and switch later.
Tomorrow testrun.

But how much do I tourqe wrench the headstuds? didn't follow any instruktions with the headgaskets.

the heads are going on now so a quick answer would be great =)

Thanks

 

If its an 83 model its 60 FT-LBS
If its an 84 model its 75 FT-LBS
If its an 85-87 model its 80 FT-LBS

hope this helps

 

Thanks for all the good and quick help so far!

Engine is back together now, started and runs nicely. But the water leak problem is still really bad, the oil gets filled up with water really quick, huge amounts of steam comes out from where you check and fill the oil after a few minutes of running time. (

Replaced the head and intake gaskets and crack tested the heads, no visible cracks in the cylinders, starting to run out of ideas.

Is there an oil coolant in these engines? There is something quite large slightly in front of the oil filter that I'm not sure of what it is, suspected that it might was some sort of oil coolant. Are they known to leak?