I just took off the EGR valve and don't see any shiny soot or wetness indicative of a failed EGR cooler.

Symptoms:
I find bellowing white smoke after accelerating from an intersection while waiting for a green light. I'm talking about a crap load of smoke. Once headed down the road, I don't see it anymore.
However, when I let off the throttle while driving then give it gas again, that's when this wicked white smoke appears upon acceleration but not after that. Just for a moment from decelerating or leaving from an intersection.


The last 2 months the truck has been parked and not started but twice. After that I put the truck in service only one day to tow a couple 28' trailers. The next day I ran around empty that's when I noticed this terrible billow of white smoke while leaving intersections or after a deceleration. Truck runs great with no noticable driving issues.
After removing the EGR valve and looking in the intake hole for the EGR valve, I see NO visible wet residue. Just dry soot.

A coolant leak down pressure test would be my first item of attack at this point.

Any technical advice or where I should start would be welcome.

 

How many miles are on the truck? Any mods?

 

your white smoke is being caused from an underfuel condition. check ficm voltage, check fuel pressure to start with.

 

fuel gauge reads 47 psi.
Truck runs smooth with plenty of power and has just 50K miles. w/ EGR cooler blocked off a year ago.
SCT tuned using one of Matt's old towing tunes.
A the 49k mile mark last winter, I had Ford check the coolant system for leak down with none found.

I have a Fluke MM but never diag. a 6.0 before or checked for FICM voltage, don't know the procedure but will check the 6.0 tech folder first.

 

There is a complete diagnostic and repair procedure in the 6.0 tech folder. You are still under warranty so let the dealer do it.

 

good advice.

 

Now that you mention an underfuel condition,
I realize that I have lost the quick acceleration off the line , kind of feels like what my ol' 7.3 powerstroke felt like when I had it.

 

f/p = 47psi at idle,
-----------
FICM checks out good;
48.2v KOEO
48.1v during crank time
48.3v at idle
---------
this is a little background that might help diagnosis the root problem;
I modded the up pipe about a year ago. I removed the "scoop",cut the "y" section off the pipe and welded it over. I then used the oem cooler clamp and gasket to "seal" the exhaust inlet side of the egr cooler after welding a flat disc over the newly modified inlet from the Y portion of the pipe, a 'cap' if you will. I didn't remove the cooler just capped it using the oem clamp eliminating any superheated exhaust gas from entering.
I remember after the modification I saw white smoke after warm up and from a stop same as now but not very much smoke compared to now, it's only after warm up and only by accelerating from a dead stop or deceleration. Now it's an incredible amount of white smoke where as after I made the above modification, it was just an "acceptable" amount of smoke upon acceleration.

Q. Could an air intake leak cause this significant smoke upon acceleration (say because I didn't cap the cooler well enough) ? or would it be a failed cooler and the inlet attached to the underside of the intake manifold is "breathing" in coolant because I didn't remove the cooler and cap off that end also. However I didnt see a "wet" intake when the egr valve was removed for inspection.

I am trying to follow a methodical process of elimination to identifying the culpret of this "underfueling/ white smoke" after vehicle warms up.

my guess is I had a failed cooler to begin with that has just gotten worse over the year. am I right?


some mods:
coolant filter, 4" T/B exhaust, SCT tuned, CCV reroute, solid up pipe, inlet on egr cooler capped.

 

A side note;
Truck has not been started in 3 days, when the degas bottle was moved over to access the FICM, small coolant hose was then disconnected and there was a significant amount of coolant pressure in the system which makes me think/ believe if the egr cooler had a leak it would in fact 'leak down' over the past three days. (Seems logical .)
my hope is this information would be of some value. Thanks guys for your evaluation.

 

you would need to either vacuum or pressure test the cooling system to figure out if you have a failed cooler.
look in the tsb section here for tsb 09-08-03 for info on diag and repair of egr cooler

 

I am subscibing to this. I sort of have the same problem you do, but only when cold. I had the EGR/Oil Coolers replaced under warranty, but its still there. I think I have a greyish/white smoke condition.

Before the egr/oil cooler replacement it was real bad, now its just when cold.

I am thinking of replacing the FP spring kit with the new blue one. I am scraping up to get a FP guage next.

Sarge

 

a few months ago I took it to a Ford Heavy shop, they performed a coolant pressure test amongst other tests because I complained of possible HG failure. They said the HG were fine and the coolant system was fine too. However the degas pressure cap was defective and needed to be replaced. (back then coolant kept pukin' while towing) but the cap was all they found to be bad. But it wasn't smoking then either or else I'd mention that too.

 

Not to sound like an A$$ but that was a few months ago. I have had an egr cooler go out on a road test that was fine 20 min before

 

don't you just love these egr coolers on the 6.0 ?!
it's like; "here we go again"

I'll do a test on the cooler as per the TSB mentioned before I give up.
really, thanks for all your help.

 

Have you considered just adding a BB behind the spring instead.?