Apparently our 2004 F550, which was started blowing out huge amounts of white smoke has a blown head gasket. Mechanic says it's going to cost $4,900 to repair. Says he has to remove the cab from the chassis to do the repairs, which include the EGR something or other, Oil Cooler, and some other things that apparently become damged/contaminated when a head gasket goes.

Does this sound even remotely right?

 

White smoke out the tail pipe says EGR cooler to me, not necessarily head gaskets. I do agree on the oil cooler though.

Is it blowing coolant out the DEGAS bottle also? That would be more of an indication of headgaskets, but headgaskets could easily be blown anyway. How many miles on the truck?

 

You have to eliminate the coolers as problems before you say HG's. Are you getting combustion gasses in the degas bottle?

 

Price sounds about right if it needs gaskets.

 

I got a quote from a well known local diesel shop. To do stock HG's with stock bolts for $1900. He also quoted me $3275 to do ARP's, Black Onyx HG's, Oil cooler and a EGR delete. 5k is way to high imo

 

If you can do the work your self. You have all the help and access to knowledge to do the work from us on the different forums.


For a start here is a link for ARP head studs.
6.0L Powerstroke Stud Kit
This is the cheapest I know of right now.

 

I was a little wrong

Rollin Smoke Diesel. 2003-2007 Ford 6.0L Powerstroke ARP Head Stud Kit

 

i just had my headgaskets and arp studs, oil cooler, and egr delete installed and some other small items, got the arp's from rolling smoke diesel, cost for the entire repair was $3000.

 

It is hard to tell without an itemized list of parts and the labor time but I too strongly suspect that the diagnosis is inaccurate. Head gaskets do not cause smoking from the tail pipe on these engines but failed EGR coolers DO! Often removing and inspecting the EGR valve is enough to diagnose such a failure but pulling a vacuum on the cooling system with a cooling system air-lift tool is more or less definitive.

Head gasket failures are indicative of aftermarket tuning and turbocharging over boost conditions caused by sticking VGT vanes and out-dated OEM calibrations.

 

Last week while driving back from a job, the truck became super hot. Noticed it immediately and pulled off to the side of the road. The air filter indicator was on. As soon as I opend the hood a puff of steam came out. The coolant reservoir was empty, but the engine temp immediately dropped back to to normal. I let the engine cool for while. Then I drove it to my shop (approx 3 miles) The engine temperature never went higher than normal after that. After we got to the shop we let the engine cool down then added some antifreeze. It took almost 2 jugs. We let the engine run for about 20 mins or so to warm back up, then added about 1/4 of a jug to top it off.

We knew we had some ICP issues with power surges so we picked one up at ford and tried our best to change it out ourselves but were not able to get access to it. I didnt want to tear the truck apart completely not knowing what I was doing so after about an hour or so of trying to locate the ICP sensor we gave up and figured we would just take the truck in to the mechanic to do.

The next morning I got in the truck and drove about a mile to the 7-11. Seemed to run fine. While in 7-11 the clerk noticed a lot of smoke outside and asked if that was my truck. I looked, and sure enough, the truck was blowing out huge amounts of white smoke. I drove the truck to my mechanics (3-4 miles) but he was not open yet, so I drove the truck back to my shop. Later that morning I drove it back to the machanics. It seemed to blow smoke heavy at idle. If you excellerated it wasnt as bad. But once you got to crewsing speed 35 or 40 mph, and were no longer excellerating the heavy smoke started again. I did have a few minutes where nothing was coming out at all.

This where we are now.

Mechanic says it has blown head gaskets, and that the EGR cooler and Oil cooler need replacing. Also said that theres a few other things he is going to look at while he has it torn apart that commonly go bad and will get back with me. I've been using this mechanic for several years and he is a prety good friend of mine. I dont have any reason to distrust him or believe he will try to rip me off. I do have some doubts about his knowledge on these 6.0 diesels though.

BTW: we never did get the ICP sensor replaced. Truck has 47k miles

 

I think Ford_Doctor gave you the straight scoop and he DOES know about 6.0 engines. NOTHING definitively says head gaskets. Park the truck pointed nose downhill and pull the EGR valve (two bolts). If there is coolant present it's an EGR cooler failure which was probably caused by a plugged oil cooler further up stream. Both are easily changed without pulling the cab OR changing the headgaskets. It's about a 5-8 hour repair for ME using hand tools, and I'm SLOW. If after the EGR/OIL cooler repairs your cooling system doesn't pass the pressure test you should start looking at headgaskets.

If it was MY hard earned dollars I'd start there. IF you keep driving the truck you'll have MAJOR problems, and possibly ruin more than headgaskets (heads) from overheating and/or coolant getting into the cylinders (hydrolock). If it's only an EGR cooler/oil cooler as I suspect you'll be several thousand dollars ahead in repairs.

 

Did you ever use a tuner on it?

Any mods?

Was truck worked hard?

Tell us more...

HGs don't go often if you are not overstressing it with tunes, etc.

But the Factory EGR cooler is pretty much a wear item.

 

The big clue here as to why he SHOULD have the head gaskets/head bolts replaced is when he said:
"The coolant reservoir was empty, but the engine temp immediately dropped back to to normal. I let the engine cool for while."

The temp immediately dropped back to normal because the head bolts stretched and the head (s) lifted and released the high pressure. This is exactly what happened to mine too. I suggest having new studs in to replace the Ford headBOLTS, replacing the clogged oil cooler and egr valve & cooler...... I'd also take it to another shop to get a better estimate.

 

My 04 F250 is still in the shop getting new head gaskets put in by the dealer. I never knew I had a single problem till I received a TSB notification from my dealer stating I needed to have the coolant checked for an additive that was put in the truck when it was new. The additive was supposed to make the coolant last 100K miles but due to a problem Ford changed it for my truck to 45K. Since I was at 68K I got it in to be checked pronto. Needless to say the coolant was not good and there was carbon deposits in it. They ran a diagnostic and said the head gaskets were leaking internally. No white smoke or gauge indications of problems were ever noted. Weird?? I have to go with only approved Ford parst so no head studs yet. I bought an extended warranty to cover the truck because it was purchased used. I have to go with the warranty till the truck reaches 100K. They ran the tests on the EGR and Oil Coolers and found no restrictions. Since the truck has always been serviced at Ford Dealers the servicing intervals were recorded and checked, thank god they had that or the warranty would have found a reason not to cover me. The not so good thing is that the warranty adjuster said they would NOT cover it if the EGR or the Oil cooler showed any restrictions what so ever. Those tests alone cost $550.00. Seems that they rust internally and block the flow then fail and cause a head gasket to blow. Anyone else have a story similar to mine yet??

 

my truck was smoking white, had coolant puking.

did my egr delete and oil cooler. problem solved