Blown Head Gasket....OH Goodie...
 

Blown Oil Cooler.
Replaced Oil Cooler with remanufactured Ford cooler and gaskets and "O" Rings.
Three cooling system flushes, and no new oil is getting into the system...so far.
Probably do a few more flushes, and then add our 50/50 mix with distilled water.

Well we are starting the year out on a good start...
Last Saturday Dec 29th we had to drive to Calif for a funeral. I checked the vital signs, Oil, coolant, hoses, belts etc.... usual stuff.
Noticed the over flow bottle was empty, HMMM...flipped the radiator cap lever and it spitted and gurgled. Strange... Loosened the cap and
coolant spewed out. Signs of a Head gasket was my first thought, but had the block heater on all night so thought just pressure built up.
But still the thought was in the back of my head, and the truck was fueled up ready to go and had 25 extra gallons in containers in the bed.
Diesel here was $2.89 and in Calif saw it for $3.62 to $4.92. We went over Hwy 88 from Minden, Nv to Stockton, Ca where it connects to
Hwy 99. 88 climbs up over 8K ft. Really pretty up there with the snow and deep blue sky.

The car was empty and not ready to rock on to Calif. so it wasn`t an option.

We make the trip over and back w/o and problems the same day, great weather and almost no traffic. About 3ft of snow up top and a few icy spots going over. Put my studded tires on the day before on all 4 corners so we were ready.

Sunday I started to feel like something was getting us, and by Monday we were down with some Viral bug. About killed me various times this
week. Today Iam actually starting to feel like I might live. So we did sick for the year, and hopefully we did it and are over that for the rest of the
year.

I started a thread about my Heater Hoses weeping coolant. They looked like condensation on them. Coolant was actually coming through the
crappy 4 yr old Autozoo hose.
I bought new Gates hose a few days ago and this afternoon was to warm up to 52 and on the Patio it will be 10deg warmer, so that is where the
250 is now. Easy fix to replace 2 hoses, drag out my pans to catch the spillage.
The engine was warm, so popped the lever on Rad. cap to releve any pressure and oil spewing out around the over flow bottle cap. OH Great!!!

So now I do know we have a Blown Head Gasket. There is no indication of Coolant in the Oil as per the Dip Stick, but that isn`t 100% known.
Iam not going to pull Heads etc.... so Monday Iam calling a Diesel shop to make an appointment. With just shy of 280K the heads will have to be
rebuilt and who knows what else.
We have bad weather coming in this weekend through the week. Snow/rain etc....

OH and I have another funeral to go to tomorrow., and my BD in a few days.
And we can get back to normal what ever that is.

Charlie

I would let it sit overnight without the block heater and see if it still has pressure on it in the morning. If it doesn't then it might just be your oil cooler.

Yeah I am not about to scream blown head gasket either. The pressure that usually comes with a blown head gasket will either blow hoses to pieces or make them "Rock Hard". It could be a head gasket yes, but it might likely be a failed radiator cap and a failed oil cooler. The cap is most likely sticky and not releasing when cold, thus when the heater was hooked up the coolant expanded and had nowhere to go. The oil in coolant is most likely an oil cooler too, but again, if the engine is cold, one way to tell.... Is take the radiator cap off, and again, do this when it is ice cold... start it. If you see old faithful appear under your hood, then you have a blown head gasket. If not, then you probably do not have a blown head gasket.

Good points, didn`t think about the Oil Cooler being the problem, even though I have read about it.
I did replace the Radiator cap when I bought the truck back in July 2014 or a couple months after that.
But we have put 87K miles on it in that time, so the cap could have a problem.
It will be cold in the morning, forcast shows 28 deg in the morning and 30 now at 11:10pm. I think it will drop down a bit more.
The damn thing won`t start w/o the block heater, but the HF Heat gun down the intake works every time. So using it, there
won`t be any pressure in the cooling system.

I have new Motorcraft GP installed and new relay, just don`t have the harness hooked up yet to the plugs. There are a few of the
spades broken off in the plastic connectors. Need to remove them and check the harness to see if everything works.
The plugs did not work when I bought it, and was afraid to remove from the stories I read of them breaking off, and not knowing
what was installed. Bought the truck to move from Ca to Nv. .Just didn`t need a problem to shut us down at that time.

I finally removed one plug and it looked new, and they were AC plugs, and all came out w/o any problems. Just sooty, and no swelling.
Boy did I feel dumb for waiting so long to dive in. LOL
Iam not going to deal with the Controller from what I read. I did have one at PNP snap off, one came out, and the last one just pulling the
harness plug, the guts of the Controller came out with the plug.
So Iam going the manual push button route.

Thanks guys.

Charlie

Pull all the glow plugs, spend $40+/- for a coolant pressure tester, pressurize the system for a period of time. Then crank the engine by hand and if coolant comes out a glow plug hole you can eliminate the oil cooler.

Yesterday afternoon I checked the upper Radiator hose and it was soft. Pulled the lever on Radiator cap and
no pressure, which I knew, checked the fluid level and is a good 2'' down with black goo.

Pulled air cleaner lid and element and stuck the HF Heat down the intake for a few minutes. Started engine and
let it run about 4 minutes. Pulled cap lever and a slight Pssst. Maybe I should have let it run longer.

Got down to 24deg and warmed up in the 30`s yesterday.
Snowed late yesterday afternoon and this morning and have maybe 1" or so.

I thought I had replaced the Radiator cap with a Motor Craft, but it is some other brand.
I`ll see about replacing that.

The water Pump was replaced this summer along with a Motor Craft Thermostat.


Charlie

If you've got oil in the coolant, it's oil cooler. NOT HEAD GASKET.
There are no places in the head gasket where oil is under pressure. Coolant is always under some pressure(weight of water if nothing else).
Oil in coolant -> Oil cooler. Period.

As others have said this is probably your oil cooler. o-rings. $20 or so for a kit with gaskets and o-rings. It's unlikely to get much if any oil in the coolant from the oil drainback holes, particularly since cooling is under pressure but oil is not. If anything I'd expect water in the oil. These engines will often leak externally at the rear corners when a head gasket fails. Check the head to block mating surfaces at the rear of each head for signed of oil or coolant.

Beyond that, my 6.9 blew a head gasket a bit over a year ago. It was overheating and had an misfire, lots of white smoke from the exhaust. It hydro locked after I shut it off. I would have done a quick head gasket job over the weekend but this happened on a Friday night and I couldn't' source any head gaskets locally so I bought a 7.3 the next day, rebuilt that, added studs, and no more problems.

Macrobb and cadunkle Thank you for the additional conformation that it is the Oil Cooler.

In the morning Iam calling the shop to make an appointment to get her in. Too dang cold
out to work on vehicles if I don`t have to, wind blowing like crazy. Looking west towards
Calif. and Lake Tahoe, I can see it is snowing up on the Mountains.

South Tahoe is suppose to get 4 to 6" this afternoon, and 8 - 10" of snow tonight.
We are 1000ft lower, 5262 ft, and suppose to get 2". That`s plenty.


Charlie

Really? I've lost track of all the head gaskets/ cracked heads I've replaced on all brands of diesel engines due to coolant in the oil and oil in the coolant. Last I looked, oil is under pressure on most any diesel at the head gasket on its way to the rocker assemblies. And usually that's right near a coolant passage which is generally where the gskt blows so you get a coolant/oil mix. Engine running--50lbs. oil pressure, 14lbs. coolant pressure. Engine off--0 oil, 14lbs. residual coolant pressure.

6.9/7.3 IDIs don't do it this way. Oil is pumped through the hydraulic lifters and up through hollow push rods up onto the rockers upper side, where it pools and runs down the rockers via gravity, before dripping off and draining back through drain holes in the head/head gasket.
On any engine that has pressurized oil going through the gasket(which would include any engine that does not have hydraulic lifters), I totally agree with you. Our IDIs are different, though.

The oil cooler is definitely easier to reseal than changing the head gaskets. You can get the oil cooler off without lifting the engine. I think the kit is about $12 from RockAuto.

Beg to differ, there is an oil passage in the gasket near the rear of each head causing IDI's to ooze oil, antifreeze, or both between the head and block at the rear which can generally be eliminated by re-torqueing.

I know what passage you are talking about. At the rear and front of each head. They had to revise the early gaskets and improve the seal. I have the tsb for it. But its just some kind of oringed gasket so I'm not sure if that passage was under pressure or not because it's not listed in my oil flow chart for the motor from international. It shows the oil going up through the lifters as mccrobb stated. Maybe it's a drain? But it's definitely not that far from a coolant passage. But both seals would have to fail to get cross transfer because they are separate a a cm or so away from eachother

I wonder if it supplies oil for under the rockers

Never had a reason to really check it out, but maybe a oil drainback passage. And like you said, if I remember right, guys have posted pics of the gasket blown right at that spot with a coolant passage close next to it.