So I got a wild hair and decided to test my cooling system pressure, just for ****s and giggles. My truck got ford blues and ARP studs so I figured I should be good. Not.
I can get the truck up to 16 PSI pretty easily with some wide open runs. One thing I've noticed is the truck does NOT like to build pressure when it's cold. For example, I can give it some good throttle while it's still relatively cold, coolant temp between 100-160, and the pressure doesn't rise much, if at all. But when the truck is fully warmed up, ~190 ECT, you can clearly see pressure rising with throttle.
Here's some of my theories on how you can build excessive cooling system pressure:
#1 The obvious, bad head gaskets: combustion gasses escaping into the cooling system and travelling up to the degas bottle.
#2 If your water pump was sucking air (which it shouldn't be), that air would make it up to the degas bottle, and with a fixed volume, would create pressure.
#3 A cracked cylinder head, again letting combustion gasses escape from the chamber, through the head,and into the cooling jackets in the cylinder head.

I'm guessing my truck has either problem #1 or #3. Note my driver's side cylinder head has been repaired with accurate diesel's repair kit, to prevent fuel breaching into the coolant. So, I KNOW there is a crack in the head - I just don't know where it starts or ends. For those not familiar, you basically install a longer sleeve into the injector bore to seal off the crack. With the repair, the fuel is contained within the new sleeve, and not within the head, so there is no contamination.

This leads me to my last question. What's my options for cylinder head repair? Unless someone can convince me my truck doesn't have blown head gaskets or cracked heads, the engine is coming out and getting new lifters, push rods, and head gaskets (truck has 370k). I'd like o-ringed heads, hardened valve seats, and the heads obviously decked flat within spec surface finish. The rest I could give a hoot about. Not looking for performance valve springs or anything. The only problem I have with buying remanufactured ford heads is that the cylinder head cracking between the fuel gallery and the coolant passage is a design flaw that can't really be fixed. The only fix I've seen for this is thicker castings (coming from China). The only good heads coming from China seem to be Kill Devil Diesel's heads, which aren't China price. They're $2300. I definitely don't want to reman my head with the crack - that head is junk. So there goes my core charge. Yeah, Southeast Cylinder Heads offers a lifetime warranty on their heads - but if I put their head in and it cracks after a few years, giving me fuel in the coolant again, I'm going to be on the hook for the labor. Yeah they'll send me a new head, which is awesome. but... yeah. What's my best options as far as cylinder heads go, I don't have endless pockets either. UCF, southeast, and kill devil are all in the $2100-2300 range. It looks like I might be picking from those 3 but the chinese castings do bother me even though they have great reviews.

Discuss below please!

 

 

You get what you pay for.

 

Where did you buy your non o-ringed heads from?
I'm pretty confident in the stoutness of the bottom end, pistons, and cylinder walls on these trucks. My heads were off at 270k and the tech said the cross hatching looked brand new. If i see something concerning, I'll address it, but for right now - I'm just planning on addressing the top end and reseal the engine.. and new lifters. cheap insurance.
bismic, yes i agree - and all 3 of those options are around the same price

 

 

FWIW, read the 8th bulleted item below, taken from the UCF website. While I was at their shop, Scott specifically showed me that cup and said it was a proprietary item. Other shops may use a similar item, but I have no knowledge of the other shops one way or the other.

6.0L Ford PowerStroke NO CORE Heads - $ 2150

 

 

 

UCF will rebuild one of both of your heads and charge accordingly. Or they will sell you already rebuilt heads. In my case, I took my heads to them for rebuilding, then drove back to pick them up 2 weeks later. There was no shipping involved, and my total cost was $1,750 plus a few gallons of gas.

 

 

 

Well some new developments...
I ended up not going with the head supplier and machine shop I stated and went with UCF o-ringed heads. I sent my cores in and they said they were cracked beyond repair so no $500 core refund.
I installed the heads in April and just did my 5,200 mile oil change last week. Today I noticed a brown residue in my degas bottle and the smell test passed as DIESEL in my coolant. This means their “proprietary” sleeves on the 4 and 5 cups failed or some of the other cups cracked or there was a total head failure and one or both cracked. Either way I am going to get on the phone with them tomorrow morning and see what we are going to do about this or if their lifetime warranty is a sham and they are going to keep my “cracked” cores and send me back cracked heads and keep my $2300 and leave me with my engine on a stand. On top of this all I will have to buy new head gaskets and no telling what else no matter what. I’m not into bashing businesses but I sure hope they take care of this issue and don’t try to tell me the heat tabs are melted or my coolant return fittings are what caused this issue. The motor never got hot and ran just fine. Heat tabs melt at 250 degrees from what I gather. What say you Jack?

 

They will probably want them back for crack testing.

Thermal sensors can be of any temp. Cat had them on my motor, they should have spent the money towards QC.

The stupid thing about them is if you know where to buy them, someone could flip in new.

https://www.omega.com/en-us/sensors-...icating-labels

 

How can I believe them? I still don’t really know if my cores were cracked beyond repair because they wouldn’t send photos, I just had to take their word for it. Bob did tell me that drilling and tapping for the coolant return system wouldn’t void the warranty but that was word if mouth as well...I know they won’t accept cores with coolant return holes.

 

You don't have much of an option here unless you do an expensive punt.