A fellow delivery business owner contacted me for assistance. He said had a refrigerated truck that was mixing oil and coolant. Most unfortunately, he told me the engine was a "Ford. The Diesel. 6.0! Good, no?".
No.
At first, I turned him down. I know enough about Powerstroke 6.0's to know I wouldn't want to touch them with a 10 foot pole. Sounded to me like a blown headgasket, and I did not want to listen to bunch of complaining that I can't separate a truck in half and replace half the engine for $10 and a box of FunDip. I didn't want to sentence any of my guys to that nightmare either.
A few days later, he contacts me again to tell me that all of the other shops he contacted gave him 5-figure estimates to fix the truck. In the meantime, he was bleeding cash renting a truck at a prince's ransom. He was desperate and needed help. I agreed to perform a diagnosis. Nothing more, and nothing less. I sent one of my trucks to pick up his truck, and proceeded to diagnose the issue.
It took all of about 25 minutes to note a distinct gap between Engine Oil Temperature and Engine Coolant Temperature. Presence of rust, as well as oil in the cooling system. I called him up to get a history of the truck. "It was like that when I got it. Flushed a lot of rust out of the system!". OK. Now it starts making sense. Definitely a plugged oil cooler. He was fortunate that someone had enough sense to do an EGR delete, otherwise the EGR would have self-destructed and taken the engine along with it.
After much consideration, conversation with my guys, and deciding I would assist them with that turdpile myself, I recommended a Ford OEM oil cooler, IPR, and IPC replacement, as well as replacement of the pigtail at both sensors, since they are known culprits. I also recommended the installation of a coolant filter and Rotella ELC NF as well, since no amount of flushing was ever going to completely eliminate garbage from that cooling system.
For those not familar with this engine, the oil cooler is a liquid/liquid type that is bolted into a cavity in the center of the valley between the cylinder heads. Engine must be stripped basically down to a long block in order to get at this thing. Inside of the cavity is a cheap screen filter that does not rival the quality of one of those bad window-unit AC filters. The idea is to keep nasty crud out of the IPR. If the IPR gets crud in it, the engine will cease to operate. Common problem when oil cooler replacement has just been performed. What if this happens? You must remove almost everything again to remove and clean this thing, because it is located under the turbocharger. This might have to be done multiple times, as crud may continue to contaminate the IPR.
This engine was about as bad as it gets. Valley screen was missing two of its panels entirely. IPR's protective screen, mounted on its nose looked like a meteor had cratered it. The valley was loaded with crud, which was a bad sign. Had a feeling this job was going to have to be done twice. Given that the screen was missing two windows, lots of crud had gone all over the engine. Common sense would lead you to believe that the main oil filter would absorb this trash, but that will be proven wrong. Everything that could be done was done to remove as much crud from the engine as possible. Valley was cleaned to surgical perfection, passageway under the valley screen was cleaned as well, and the filter head and housing went into a nice chemical bath. Heated, fresh engine oil was poured down through the engine to flush out anything that might be hiding in the oil pan.
The entire process, and 5 hours of flushing the cooling system finally restored the engine to its former inglory. The truck was delivered back into service with the warning that another visit may be necessary.
Naturally, the truck started having problems shortly after. Picked up the truck again, drained oil hot, and tore down everything again.
This time, the cheap valley screen held up, but was loaded with new trash. The new IPR's screen was meteor-impacted again. The valley and channel under the valley screen had black crud under it. Nice. So the IPR was replaced for a second time, the valley and channel were cleaned again, filter housing cleaned again, and all of the gaskets were replaced.
This time, the cat did not come back. That truck has put 4,000 miles on the road in the past 3 weeks with no problem. Let's hope it stays that way.
Impacted (second) IPR:
Filthy (2nd) valley screen:
I will never understand what kind of drugs International was sliding under the doors of the 50 engineers they had locked in 50 separate rooms that they starved into designing this engine. Though in their defense, this engine likely had a problem due to someone's neglect or abuse.
No.
At first, I turned him down. I know enough about Powerstroke 6.0's to know I wouldn't want to touch them with a 10 foot pole. Sounded to me like a blown headgasket, and I did not want to listen to bunch of complaining that I can't separate a truck in half and replace half the engine for $10 and a box of FunDip. I didn't want to sentence any of my guys to that nightmare either.
A few days later, he contacts me again to tell me that all of the other shops he contacted gave him 5-figure estimates to fix the truck. In the meantime, he was bleeding cash renting a truck at a prince's ransom. He was desperate and needed help. I agreed to perform a diagnosis. Nothing more, and nothing less. I sent one of my trucks to pick up his truck, and proceeded to diagnose the issue.
It took all of about 25 minutes to note a distinct gap between Engine Oil Temperature and Engine Coolant Temperature. Presence of rust, as well as oil in the cooling system. I called him up to get a history of the truck. "It was like that when I got it. Flushed a lot of rust out of the system!". OK. Now it starts making sense. Definitely a plugged oil cooler. He was fortunate that someone had enough sense to do an EGR delete, otherwise the EGR would have self-destructed and taken the engine along with it.
After much consideration, conversation with my guys, and deciding I would assist them with that turdpile myself, I recommended a Ford OEM oil cooler, IPR, and IPC replacement, as well as replacement of the pigtail at both sensors, since they are known culprits. I also recommended the installation of a coolant filter and Rotella ELC NF as well, since no amount of flushing was ever going to completely eliminate garbage from that cooling system.
For those not familar with this engine, the oil cooler is a liquid/liquid type that is bolted into a cavity in the center of the valley between the cylinder heads. Engine must be stripped basically down to a long block in order to get at this thing. Inside of the cavity is a cheap screen filter that does not rival the quality of one of those bad window-unit AC filters. The idea is to keep nasty crud out of the IPR. If the IPR gets crud in it, the engine will cease to operate. Common problem when oil cooler replacement has just been performed. What if this happens? You must remove almost everything again to remove and clean this thing, because it is located under the turbocharger. This might have to be done multiple times, as crud may continue to contaminate the IPR.
This engine was about as bad as it gets. Valley screen was missing two of its panels entirely. IPR's protective screen, mounted on its nose looked like a meteor had cratered it. The valley was loaded with crud, which was a bad sign. Had a feeling this job was going to have to be done twice. Given that the screen was missing two windows, lots of crud had gone all over the engine. Common sense would lead you to believe that the main oil filter would absorb this trash, but that will be proven wrong. Everything that could be done was done to remove as much crud from the engine as possible. Valley was cleaned to surgical perfection, passageway under the valley screen was cleaned as well, and the filter head and housing went into a nice chemical bath. Heated, fresh engine oil was poured down through the engine to flush out anything that might be hiding in the oil pan.
The entire process, and 5 hours of flushing the cooling system finally restored the engine to its former inglory. The truck was delivered back into service with the warning that another visit may be necessary.
Naturally, the truck started having problems shortly after. Picked up the truck again, drained oil hot, and tore down everything again.
This time, the cheap valley screen held up, but was loaded with new trash. The new IPR's screen was meteor-impacted again. The valley and channel under the valley screen had black crud under it. Nice. So the IPR was replaced for a second time, the valley and channel were cleaned again, filter housing cleaned again, and all of the gaskets were replaced.
This time, the cat did not come back. That truck has put 4,000 miles on the road in the past 3 weeks with no problem. Let's hope it stays that way.
Impacted (second) IPR:
Filthy (2nd) valley screen:
I will never understand what kind of drugs International was sliding under the doors of the 50 engineers they had locked in 50 separate rooms that they starved into designing this engine. Though in their defense, this engine likely had a problem due to someone's neglect or abuse.