The pictures below are from my first coolant filter change. The filter was installed 8K miles ago and shows very little debris or sand. I was surprised that only a minor amount of coolant was lost during the change process even without shut-off valves.

 

Kewl, your lucky. My 1st plugged in 300 miles. I had a filter on the truck at 2,000 miles in 2005 and am now having a new oil/egr coolers installed. The filter bought me time, in my opinion, but didn't save me. Guess there was to much crap in my system. The 2nd filter took approx. 1,000 miles to plug.

 

In my previous truck (2003 6.0), the coolant was in awesome shape at 60k when I first installed the coolant filter, as the first filter never plugged and barely caught any casting sand.

However, my 2006 was the opposite. First filter plugged after less than a tankful of fuel, the second after another couple of tankfuls, and the third ran for several thousand miles before I finally flushed the system and put in new coolant (last summer).

Now I'm replacing the oil cooler after having done another coolant flush (this time with VC-9) a couple weeks ago. Once this is done and a new coolant filter is installed, I'm hoping to be good to go for a long time (fingers are crossed).

 

Sweet man, I hope I am the same

 

Hey Cowboy65, have you ever replaced egr or oil cooler? How often have you flushed coolant?? I have 65k on my 05 and I have no coolant filter as of yet. I do however flush coolant every year...

 

IMHO its never too late to install one. Probably the sooner the better. I installed mine a few months after I bought the truck (had 126k on it when I bought it) and changed the first one within 1k miles. The debris that came out of it without even cutting mine open convinced me it was worth the time and money. Flushing won't get all of it, and for $120+ its cheap insurance.

 

I had mine on at 54k then at 57.5k It went to the dealer last month. It had new oil cooler, egr coolers and ARP studs under warranty even though there were no issues.(purchasd the studs, $395 free ship and paid the $100 deductable). And I got all new coolant so I think I am going to let my filter hit 10k, or more if I feel like it.

The coolant filters function does not work like at trans or oil filter because the coolant does not gain debris. It is a closed system. So we can go as long as we want on these coolant filters. But the coolant filter will break down eventually so we do need to change it.

 

The heating/cooling cycles precipitates casting and other mineral drop outs into the cooling system. Your statement is not entirely true.

 

Yes I should have uesed different words

 

If that is not sufficent reason to filter coolant from now on,consider what is broken loose during future maintainace repairs like hose replacement,t-stat change out,as well as having to top off/refill coolant with questionable water in an emergency.

 

Put mine on today took abought 30min seemed too easy.(read so many posts on it LOL) no leaks and let it idel to temp could tell it was flowing the top of the filter houseing started to get warm sure did have a lot of extra hose left from the kit though.

 

put mine on my 06 about 10K miles ago (at about 55K miles) I changed it at 65K .miles, not because it was plugged, but because I wanted to disect it and have a look. Barley any sand at all, I was pleased. Might have something to do with it was flushed under warranty when the studs were done.

 

Nice! I had new egr and oil cooler 3-4k after I put my filter on.

 

EGR & oil cooler are both original.

I flush my coolant every 50K miles.

Even though I found very little debris or sand in the coolant filter I am still pleased that I installed this mod. IMO the cost is cheap insurance and worth the peace of mind if nothing else.

 

All the diffrent situations, miles,and years and it seems from reading diffrent threads the oil cooler failures is random as hell.