Are the 6.0 cylinder heads prone to cracking?? Had studs & gaskets done and the report back is that my old heads are both full of cracks.
Is this common?? Truck had 127xxx & no signs of smoking or coolant loss.
Thanks

 

i have never seen them crack. Seen them warp though, which leads to combustion in coolant. Obviously the cracks weren't a problem, if there were cracks.

 

I wouldn't say they are prone, but it happens quite a bit. I've heard of more than one cracking story.

 

What he said.

 

There was a thread on this a couple weeks back and if I remember right there is an allowable tolerance for the cracks. I want to say it was something like as long as the cracks do not enter the valve seat they were OK. But I don't remember the exact thread or who that information came from.

 

I was told that both heads if milled, were cracked so bad that they would fall to pieces.
It's hard to think that this truck ran decent w/o using any fluids or smoking and was just doing some preventive work and egr delete & now have an added core charge of $2000 because my heads are cracked

 

Regardless whether your heads can be milled or not, anybody who would make such an asinine statement (they would fall to pieces) I would avoid in the future.

 

I have seen a number of threads about cracked heads. I just had mine checked last week and found I had 2 cracks on one head and 1 on the other. And I had no signs at the time I pulled the motor. I wouldn't say that it's not common.

 

One of the mags ran a story several months ago. Every 6.0 problem solved. They stated that is does happen. If the truck was running fine, I would question the head removal process. You can not just unbolt the head. It has to be un torqued in increments, in sequence.

 

when my truck was stock and the head gaskets blew i had both of the heads checked "just to be sure before having the mechanic putting everything back" and both had small and semi larger cracks... i wouldn't say it's super common but you need to always check.

 

For $2000 you can buy new heads from Ford. Who is adding the core charge??

FYI--I just did a little checking on Ed the Parts guy's site. NEW HEADS-- $1011.17 each plus $250 core charge.

 

IMHO, if you have a choice between a brand new pair of heads vs. a rebuilt of unknown history, take the new one.

 

You can get completely rebuilt heads for $500 each... from "Cylinder Head International" in Texas. New would be best if you can afford the expense...

When I had my heads inspected, they had hair line cracks in several places between the glow plug port and valve seat. I suspect its more common than you think. What i would really like to know is if it even matters that there are hairline cracks? Of course the guy at the machine shop tells you it matters because he wants more business but in reality I don't know.

 

That means the premium for new heads is $1,200 a pair if you got it from the great Partsguy...

Work out the labor cost to put it in (even if you do it yourself), and the other costs (coolant, gaskets, etc).

Hardly worthwhile using remans... which is a cesspool of bad parts if you got it from a poor vendor.

Let someone else mess with it.

 

wow i wish i could have found heads for a 1000 each i paid 2650 each here in canada my head job cost me over 10 grand i guess i should have shopped around oh well to late now i guess