I have spent many hours reading on this site and recently many more in the 6.0 forum. I wish I had spent many more before my last episode.

I use a F450 as my tool truck. It is a crew cab and has the longer frame with my service body and tools it weighed out at a little over 14,000 pounds. I occasionally pull a trailer with scissor lifts and get right up close to the gross combined weight rating of 26,000 pounds. It is an 05 which I bought in 04 so the engine probably has an 04 build date. It is completely stock.

The cooling fan has always come on a lot and since the truck is heavy I'm sure that is to be expected. The roaring of the fan is accompanied by a high pitch whistle when pulling a load. That isn't something that I think is normal but I could never get it addressed when the truck was under warranty. Although the fan runs a lot it has always worked and kept it from overheating.

Last week I experienced my first real overheating, in the past the needle would start going up to the red but stop when the fan kicked into high gear. This time it kept going and I got a warning to check my guages and an audio alarm also. I pulled it over and let it idle for a minute to see if it would cool down but got scared and shut it off. It lost two gallons of coolant. I sent it to the Ford garage and for $2,100 they replaced the EGR valve, thermostat, water pump and fan clutch. It now pulls the same hills with the needle just below the red. Is that OK? Should I try something else like disconnecting the EGR valve? I read the thread in the tech folder about disconnecting the EGR and it seems like it might help a little. I also have black smoke as I start out.

Had I read some of the threads on overheating earlier, maybe I wouldn't have panicked and sent it to the dealer and spent so much money. I was surprised to see how many people experienced "coolant puking"

I don't have the money to do anything major but I'll spend what I need to protect my investment in the truck. If anyone in the Reno area knows of a good garage, I'd just as soon take it there as go back to the dealer.

Thanks
ES

 

You need to get some gauges such as ScanGauge ll or Edge Insite and monitor the eot/ect temps. You could have an oil cooler plugging also. The dealer also should have done a VC-9 flush before changing out all the parts or at the least after the fact. JMHO

 

The invoice shows a charge for new coolant but not a flush. I guess I could inquire about whether they did it. I'll look at purchasing the guages, I can see the value in knowing what is getting hot.

 

ScanGauge ll at auto Zone is $159. Cheapest all around multi digital gauge you can get to my knowledge.

 

I agree^^^

I know a good tech in Vegas