I have noticed a resurgence of posts by people that believe that stock gauges in the factory cluster are "good enough". That if they aren't in the red or if a light isn't on, then all is good.

Some of these people(not all) believe that the 6.0 is junk or has a crappy design, or is all in all trouble. Why they would trust factory design gauges to give them adequate warning on issues on what they believe to be a problematic truck, I'll never know.

I have been burned by two trucks in my driving career. A 7.3 and a 5.9. Both were bone stock(not even a muffler delete) and both had lights to let me know of issues that were going on, some had a gauges to go along with those lights, some just had the light. I have never seen so much as a CEL come on on either of those trucks. Both trucks had burned trannys, but no light came on to tell me I had issues. I could have had other problems develope before I got rid of both trucks, hell I don't know. I have known quite a few people that have fried trannys on their 150 as well. Don't think that this is something that I would do or advocate doing just because I have a 6.0.

On the 6.0, I installed gauges. I knew well in advance when my tranny was going out on me due to all the HP mods that I did, and based on the temps I was reading on the a/m gauge, I could see why the factory one wasn't coming on, but I was still having issues. I got it stopped before I was hauling horses on a long haul trip, which had happened on the 5.9. Also, due to the bigger injectors, my fuel pump started to go out on me as well. It was just barely starting to go out, but I was losing pressure. If I had waited til a code was thrown(I don't know what code that would have been as Fuel PSI isn't monitored by our computers) I could also have had to worry about buying a set of new performance injectors as running on low fuel PSI could have killed them in the long run. Or anything else that would have been affected by low fuel pressure.

I don't see how anyone can say that the factory gauges in the cluster(don't confuse my talking about the sensors themselves, they are accurate, it's the information that is being relayed to the driver that is not and that is what is most important) are anywhere near "good enough" rather you are talking about a stock truck or a modified one.

Caveat: While there have been recent posts about this and I'm sure that there are some people that think I'm specifically talking about other users or the users themselves thinking I'm specifically talking about them. Those recent posts just brought this whole "pet peeve" back to the forefront in my mind. That is truly the only thing that those people should as of right now take from my posting this.

 

Basically tex your saying.... Gauges they are cheap insurance on a major disaster. The 6.0 specifically you should watch...
Egts, tranny, eot, ect, and fuel psi (even stock)
Boost, volts, low side oil psi, hpop and a few others are not a bad idea. If your using the factory cluster for anything other than speed and mile traveled your the idiot?

 

Well let's say, slightly uninformed as to what is really going on.

 

As a 3 yr owner of a diesel truck, but only recently educated, I wish I had paid more attention to these preventative maintenance items (gauges, flushes) before.
Although my truck has alot of wear on it, the more I read on this site, the more I'm believing that I might have gotten away without doing studs and head gaskets if I had known more. (I say this because they got me a lot of miles without any issues, and I believe I drove right through an oil cooler/egr problem & didn't know it was happening)

I know it was up to me to educate myself, but to be honest, as a newbie, I initially found the info on here overwhelming.
It was only when things went wrong & I had something specific to chase after that my knowledge started to grow.

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to provide answers and write ups on here. It's helped me out a whole lot.

And to echo Tex's post, my next big purchase will be maybe 6 gauges to make sure I really have my finger on the pulse of this engine. After that maybe a dashdaq if I can sell a few more jobs over the fall.

Case in point .. my truck quit recently and is having alot of work done, but I didn't even get a CEL.

 

I agree with you tex about the importance of gauges. The gauges help you know what is going on with your truck and can help you spot a small problem before it turns into a huge problem. I am a commercial transport mechanic and when I am road testing a big rig I look at all the gauges and you can learn alot about the condition of the truck by what the gauges are reading. Sometimes I wish ford built these trucks like a pete or kenworth with 30 gauges on the dash that actually work instead of 4 that dont tell you anything about what your truck is doing.

 

You know what the irony is? The irony is that the sensor that reads everything(for the ones that I have analog versions for) are actually quite accurate. Maybe a 2 degrees off(which I could attribute to position of the individual probes) or 2-3 psi off depending on what "you" are reading. It's just what they use to relay that information to the driver that is bad.

 

I have 4 gauges on a cluster that seem to be somewhat close to correct.
the speedo
the odo
the boost gauge
the fuel gauge
I dont belive a single one of the others.

 

As far as the cluster goes(and what the majority of people look at) that is it. I just find it ironic if you are able to pull it from the OBD port, you actually get reliable readings.

I was told once, I don't know if it's true or not though, that Ford had to dummy it down because people that didn't know any better were coming in with warranty claims saying that their vehicle was running a little hot.

Now I can see where that would happen given some of the people that I know out there that are driving these and other vehicles, but I don't know if that is truly the reason why Ford did that or not. Makes for a funny story though.