Greetings all,
New to the forum, but have been lurking looking for an answer I can't seem to find. I will apologize now for the lengthy post but want to give as much detail as possible to see if I am missing something. I purchased a 2005 F350 Dually with a 6.0 and 180k in December. Truck was is good shape and got what I thought was a good deal and has been so far except for some issues that seem to be consistent with 6.0's. First issue, was driving when truck seemed to buck and then ran normal while I was merging onto the interstate. Nothing for a few hundred miles then all of a sudden its bucking constantly and eventually dies. No smoke to speak of, pull over (like I had a choice) and truck starts back up, idles fine, take off and it starts all over. Call a tow truck from the Ford dealership, they do diagnostics and find the ICP low pressure, pulled the icp and the screen was blown. replaced the ICP and starts up and runs great. Cool problem solved, NOPE.

Fast forward a week of town driving, head out on about an hour drive on I40, truck starts doing the same thing. It does make it to my destination and have a mechanic that I know there take a look and it starts and runs fine while he is there. Great, thinking maybe just air from the ICP replacement and it worked itself out. Until I get back home and then same issue. Take her back to Ford and they find it 10 quarts low on oil. The dealership i bought it from had changed the oil and yes I checked it when I bought it. I had only put maybe 1500 miles on the truck, so yes, I'm an idiot for not checking it, but then again, neither did Ford when they had it the first time.

After doing research on here, watching DieselTechRon videos and whatever else I could find, I decided to have the truck "Bulletproofed", EGR delete, Blue spring kit, bulletproof oil cooler, HPOP fitting, new Garret turbo, Oil feed tubes, etc. Basically everything I could think of except having the heads redone and new studs. So now after all this, The truck runs great and strong, no smoke except when my foot gets heavy and I am still having to add about 1 quart every 300 miles of driving. Doesn't seem to matter if it is in town driving or interstate. There is a residue on the rear fender that I would call "gummy", not soot like I would expect. Have done the cap blow by test and it just sits there.

There are no leaks. Park her in the carport for days at a time with no marks. Have not lowered the downpipe to see what it looks like in there yet, but I am at a loss of where to go next or if there is a test I can do. Have called what I think are experts and am told they have never heard of this on a 6.0. A 7.3, yes, but not the 6.0.
As far as I know, the truck is stock except what I have done to it. Stock tune, using rotella T 15W40, PS Cetane boost. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated because at this point I don't want to throw more money at her without a positive fix. Even if its a new short block, cool, but just don't want to worry about her breaking down while I'm towing my 5er around. Thanks in advance!:-missingt

Randall

 

A quart every 300 miles isn't "too" bad, but it's getting there.

Not sure where you are in the housekeeping cycle but I'd start with something fairly accessible like the injectors --- new orings (Moto kit plus the AP kit with the top seal and new clip)...................otherwise and with that mileage it's deeper in the block...........$3500 or so for a new short block plus labor can get you up there in numbers ($)..............these engines are not cheap --- I just put $15K in one top to bottom..........new practically everything (e.g. upgraded turbo, alum heads, etc)...........

 

17 to 25 quarts over the average oil change interval would sure tick me off!

I would be pulling the downpipe ASAP. Even though it is new, the turbo should probably be pulled and checked.

 

 

SmackDaddy
Thanks for the reply. I haven't touched the injectors yet but that was what I was leaning towards doing. Just really did't want to drop a full set of injectors and still have the same issue. Is there any tests that can be done to check leakage on those seals or the nipple seals? $15K wouldn't be in the budget right now but eventually that may be the route I go.

 

Well I guess I am doing a running oil change and just change the filters every 5K lol. Just drives me insane when there is that much oil and no smoke. At least then I would know what the issue is, but welcome to 6.0 life for me. I will be taking it back to the shop where I had the bulletproofing done and see if he can check it.

 

Did you ever figure it out?

 

Not yet... She is still chugging along pulling the 5er with no issues. I am at the point now that I think I am just going to let her ride until I get the money put back to do a full engine swap. Weird thing is I do not have a lot of blow by out of the fill tube, but I do get residue on the rear fender. What I think happened is when I bought the truck with 170,000 on it that the dash had been replaced and it had quite a few more miles on it that it showed. I won't know that for sure until it gets pulled apart, but that is my suspicion. Truck is in great shape other than this issue, so it will be worth the money to do an engine swap with something with a little more juice to it.

 

I appreciate you getting back. Was hoping you found a solution! I've only had a 6.0 for a year and the learning curve is a little steep on these LOL Mine is using oil too. Runs great and seems to have plenty of power. Mine definitely uses more oil the faster I drive. Running 75 on the highway it'll use a quart in 500 miles. If I keep to 65 it's like half that. Same on blow-by. I see a little puffing out the filler, but it won't knock off the oil cap. I'm probably just going to use conventional oil and change it more often. I can't see continuing to run premium oil when it is just going poof... If I ever figure out where my oil is going I'll make sure to reply.

 

I was using 5-40 in mine up until 2 oil changes ago. I switched to 15-40 due to 5-40 being a pain to find. When I switched to 15-40 the consumption seemed to slow down. I started logging the oil consumption and this last time I only used 3/4 quart in 1300 miles. If that stayed constant that would only be around 3 quarts in a 5k interval. If it was only using that much the whole time I probably wouldn't even worry about it.

I had mine to the shop just recently. They pulled my turbo and it is good. The blowby is good. No smoke out of tailpipe. They were at a loss also. It had a bad injector and they replaced that. They said it was "grossly over-fueling". Everyone says it can't have anything to do with the injector but I'm curious if the oil consumption changes. I found ONE guy on the whole internet who said he got new injectors in his 6.0 and his oil consumption got better. Not exactly statistically significant... lol

The shop changed the oil after the injector swap, so I only have 1300 miles of data so far. I'm going to keep logging and see what I find.

 

Please keep us updated.

 

Injector made no difference. It used a quart in the first 600 miles. Then I went on a 3500 mile road trip and probably put another gallon in along the way.

The shop had put in Dino oil. When I got back home I changed it back to T-6 15w40. That was what I was running when I got 1300 miles out of a quart.

 

What are your oil temps when running?

 

Well they always seem to run 5-12* above whatever the ECT is. Seems like they're basically between 195 to 215.