Well the title says it all. I have to say i am very surprised with this happening to me at 113,000 miles. My truck has been DPF and EGR deleted since the truck had 10,000 miles on it. I have changed the oil every 3,500 to 5,000 miles. I have always used synthetic rotella oil 5w-40. I have had a oil bypass filter on the truck since 60,000 miles, oil samples have all been good. Iron was always high but blackstone always accredited it to the high levels of towing i did. Now the truck has been tuned since 10,000 miles and i tow a lot but i have never abused the truck maintenance has always been top notch.

I havent tore into it yet but i have seen and worked on enough 6.4 trucks with the symptoms to know it has the issue. You can hear the valve train noise very slightly and the intake is just starting to make a echo which is about the best i can describe it. Our fleet trucks have all had this issue from 110,000 to 130,000 miles, but most are completely stock with all emission equipment, 15w40 delo 400 oil that is changed every 5,000 miles or less. On the first truck we had an issue ford advised us to not mess with it tell we had an bigger issue or cylinder skip. So on there advice we did, when the issue became a dead skip we took it in only to find out we had waited to long and the valve guides where damaged turning a 1,500.00 repair into a 4,500 dollar repair. Since that horrible experience we have replaced the rockers at first notice and have had no issue. The rockers on my truck not completely gone but i don't want to wait for it to break before i fix them, so I figure ill catch it before it gets really bad and cause damage to other components. I plan to upgrade all the push rods as well while I have it apart.

With that being said i think its poor design leading to the failure. From what i see on the forums and read most trucks over 100,000 miles that work hard have the issues, trucks that are simply commuters don't seem to have the problem as early. I always thought the issue was more or less driven by the oil being diluted from active regens or poor maintenance.

Now what can be done to improve this issue. I have read several people have replaced there 6.4 rockers with rockers from a 6.0 and have had good luck but obviously its hard to get good feed back because people simply haven't put on the extra 100,000 miles to see if it is actually improved. My thoughts where if the engine went 113,000 on the stock set another 113,000 miles would be close to life of the motor or either way not something you have to change often.

I have also seen that harland sharp makes a billet set for the 6.0. If the 6.0 rockers are interchangeable these may be a good upgrade(Maybe a tech could chime in and verify they truly are interchangeable), but the price is crazy you could pay to have the factory rockers change twice for just what the Harlands cost.

Harland Sharp Roller Rocker Arms PowerStroke 6.0L 2003-07

There are other post on this issue I'm just looking to see if there are any better parts or updates on this issue. I plan to take some photos when i change them and do a little write up as usual.

 

I ran mine with the emissions on. I did the the CCV mod if you recall. I did the oil changes just like you. Never had much fuel dilution if any.


I think the rockers were of an ok design. It is the oiling of them that is weak.


That is my opinion.


So changing the rockers to a different type probably won't help..imho.

 

To be honest i still think the rockers are sub par with what comparable engines have. Look at what a DT466 or other medium duty international diesel engine. International should have thought it thru a little better.

I have looked at a few cams out of 6.4's that have had failures and it looks to me that the ramp rate is to aggressive affecting valve train harmonics leading to the result of premature failure of valve train components. Its something i have seen in high performance gas engines. I wonder if international uses a different cam in the max force 7 engine then what they provided ford in the 6.4 power stroke. Im just curious because the power and torque curves are very different which could be the tuning alone i don't really know. If the cam is causing valve harmonics its an easy fix, just need to re-grind the cam. But with out further investigation i can't pin point it but i think its a good theory to say the least.

 

If you could get ahold of a DT466 and see if there is a design change then maybe so. Interesting thought.

 

I'm not sure on other options for the rockers. I had my engine opened up for hpfp replacement and this is what my rockers looked like at 105,000 miles. It's been dpf deleted since around 65,000 miles. I put oem back in, but curious to know if there would have been other options.

Every bank had one or two tips like the one to left in pic. So we had to change all the rocker arms.

 

Yep i bet you saved yourself a lot of headaches doing them all.

But this is the issue, they can be very worn and the truck drives and sounds fine, thats why i don't believe we see this a lot more or hear about it. Its not until the engine has a miss or loss of power that most people notice. By then the lifter could be damaged, cam wiped out ect...... and it too late. From what i understand if the cam and lifters are damaged the dealer does not repair it, they simply short block it and are done with it, but thats a hell of an expense to the truck owner considering how cheap the rocker assemblies are and that it could be prevented. I have a friend as well has a 6.4 with 132,000 miles and the engine needs rockers. When i brought it up to him he said yeah its a little noise but it runs good.....he said he's not worried about it... the problem is waiting to long takes its toll on all the other components, the heads by design have no guides there just machined in the head a real crapy design, as soon as the rockers get to the point where they eat into the bridge the valves starts getting a side loaded escalating the issue and wearing the heads in no time or causing other catastrophic damage. If your **** about your truck and listen close they will give you signs this issue is developing, like i said we have already done several of our F-450's and have been fortunate to only have to do the rockers.

Im really interested to see what mine are gonna look like

 

I believe the reason that dealers won't replace a damage crankshaft is the labor involved. It requires complete engine disassembly; the absolute last thing that is removed from the engine block is the camshaft. That's a lot of labor, especially if something else is found during teardown.

Sadly the 6.0 and 6.4L have had their share of valve issues. Glad to hear you discovered yours before it's too late!

 

When I replaced the cam and lifters in my 08 I had a good conversation with Geoff at Colt Cams. (www.coltcams.com) He told me that "the camshaft in 6.0L and 6.4L is just WRONG!" He told me how they had put a cam on his test bench to measure the lift and all, that he noticed a sudden jump right where the lifter approaches the ramp and begins to load up. (He told me how much the jump was; I forget) They had concluded it was a bad lobe, and had tried an other. Same result. So they had taken another cam, only to discover the very same design. From what he explained to me, this little bump takes its toll quickly on the little needle bearings inside the lifter. Soon the lifter wheel begins to skid intermittently, and eventually wears the lobe off the cam.
That poorly designed cam could well be sending shocks through the whole valve train, taking the years off the rocker arms too ...

NEXUS 4. IB AutoGroup

 

Anyone know if they changed the design for 09-10 model year.?

 

Same design from 08-10. Issue lies in the lack of lubrication they see.

 

double post.

 

[QUOTE=SANDDEMON08;14754803]So I did some internet digging and low and behold I found someone that shares the same thought I have with the cam being the root cause of these issues. Here's a video the company is dynamic diesel, I checked out some of there builds they look impressive but I haven't heard of them before note have i seen any of there builds mentioned on other forums i frequent

Its interesting that in there opinion this design flaw is partially due to emissions design and requirements.

[/

The manufacture of there stage 1, stage 2 and stage 3 appears to be Colt cams.

Speaking of Colt cams how are you liking your 73fan? What stage cam did you get?

 

The only change i know that international did happened in 2010. International changed the maxxforce 7 block material from a cast iron block to a CGI block and they went to a larger improved single EGR cooler instead of the dual utilized in the powerstroke version, but neither change made it to the powerstoke version of the engine supplied to ford..

 

Interesting article. I suppose emissions has something to do with it. Nice to maybe finally get the real root issue of the rocker failures.


I still think that the oil is not as robust as it should be as well.

 

Well i confirmed the aftermarket 6.0 rocker assemblies like the Harland sharp will not work, the fulcrum points are completely different so that is out.

After further research there are only two companies working on a roller rocker upgrade set-up for the 6.4. The companies are elite diesel and empire diesel both of which have no timeline as to when they will be fully tested and available to the public.

So looks like the stock set-up for the rockers is my only choice, which I'm good with I'm just tempted now to pull the engine and due the cam upgrade while I'm at it.