Got my base oil report, 6% fuel. Oouch
 

Got my base oil report for the new oil change program (see super dooper duty oil program from last week) I'm dissapointed to have 6% fuel in the oil. Who wants to guess, injectors Surely that's not all blow by is it? I have no codes and it runs great. Nothing to do I guess but drive and wait.

As I understand it you really dont drive the truck in town? I also notice the ? about antifreeze.

Any coolant loss or creep?

Tailpipes..how are they looking?

When you regen...what are you doing at those times..how far apart are the average regens? RPMS during the regen process?

Big thing that causes some of this is that upper ring on the piston. It is designed to be loose and then when the motor is working it expands to create the seal.

That is one of the reasons you see blow-by.

My coolant goes from the top of the "full cold" to the bottom in maybe 12,000 miles but I don't let it get below that. That means I've added twice in the 18 months I've had the truck and it is presently full. I've just written that off as one of several puzzling things about this truck. Tailpipe is clean like new, Regens are normal except on my last trip I had another one where the "cleaning exhaust system" stayed on. My flash is up to date but every now and then I've had one of those where the message stays on, the other times were in the rockies last summer. I've also written that off as one of the puzzling things. I did have a little city driving in pensacola but not much and a nice 350 mile highway run home pulling the 5er. I don't get it but I think I'm just gonna keep on trucking for a while. Also, I can't get the blackwell file to open in my post. What's up with that, it's a PDF file. So, here it is.

Stanley,
Based upon what you are indicating everything is as normal as can be.

They only thing I can think of is a nasty regen while at a lower speed. If that ever happens again try dropping down to a lower gear and get the rpms up.

That is what happened to me on my last one. I had a really nasty regen and I was stuck shutting it off and then it restarting a few times till I could get it done.

Luckily it was close to a oil change time.

any chance the sampling method was different this time?

hot vs cold, later in the stream than before? (I expect fuel to sit on oil).. longer sit time (overnight vs after a drive)?

Sam

Hard to say, the last was done by the shop and they just handed me a jar full. I took this one mid-stream after a warm up but not a full warm up. How precise do I need to be, it's not like brain surgery is it? Which is heaiver, oil right? But with A warm up everything should be mixed. It's absolutely possible I regened in town and missed it, or even shut it off midway. And if I didn't wifie may have. Could that blowby that much fuel into the oil. I mean 6% in 15 qts was .9 of a Qt when I was in school. That's a lot of fuel. Now that I think about it it's worse than that. It's 6% of 15.9 qts. Aaaah, math makes my head hurt. BTW, the ? by antifreeze means they thought there was some but not enough to measure.

Having ~ 1 quart of diesel in your crankcase cannot be a good thing, and if you are loosing even a small amount of coolant could mean the radiater and/or EGR cooler is defective with the latter not to be ignored as serious engine problems can develop.

I think I would be scheduling a visit to my local Ford shop!

Doesn't have a coolant issue.

Well my understanding is that without codes or some problems I'm not gonna get ford to do anything. I'm not sure what the difference between not enough coolant for a chemist to measure and no coolant is, but I'm pretty sure it's not gonna be enough to get ford to do any warranty work. I agree the diesel in the oil is nasty but these trucks all have some in there. I'll call my service advisor next week but I don't think they will do anything based on an oil analyis. I just finished a long hard 9500 mile trip pulling a heavy 5er through the Rockies this summer and the truck was awesome. But if you know something I don't please share.

ever thought about a dpf delete? that would solve your issue for sure. i don't think its injector issues with a clean pipe and everything else running ok.

Oh yes, I think about it often but I hate to give up the warranty and my Roy Rogers upbringing won't allow me to put it back on if I blow something up. No doubt if I still have it when my 5 years is out (20 months) I'll do it. i haven't had any real problems yet so I'm just hanging on waiting for the other shoe to drop.

You said your coolant level drops from "full cold" to the bottom in maybe 12,000 miles". The issue with the 6.4 is if you have an EGR leak on the lower EGR piece the coolant will drain into your cylinder. Water doesn't compress and all kind of nasty's can occurr! I'm not sure if this type of coolant leak would show up in a UOA since the coolant would turn into steam in the cylinder.

Troy, my '08 had the exact same issue. I took it in and the pressure tested everything and found no problems. I specifically told them to check the EGR coolers, and everything checked out.

Was a mystery up until the day she died. After that I KNEW where all the coolant was going!

OK, help me out here, if the coolant turns in to steam what does it harm. It's like water in a boat oil, it will steam out when the oil gets hot and nothing is harmed. Right?

First and foremost water doesn't compress so any water in a cylinder will put unnecessary stress on the headbolts/gaskets during the compression stroke and then that water will turn to steam which increases the cylinder temperature which puts again unnecessary stress on the headbolts/gaskets.

The problem is what amount of water in the cylinders causes these problems????? I can say this my cousin who is a Ford diesel tech has replaced more 6.4 engines from damage caused by leaking EGR coolers than he's replaced 6.0 engines. Leaking EGR coolers is an issue not to ignore!