My Ford Excursion - Zombie Apocolypse/Expedition Vehicle

upsidedown22

New member
It is the oil cooler that plugs not the EGR. Oil temp will go up and the EGR will flash boil and start leaking coolant into the Cyl. and then lift the heads from the steam acting like over boost. You need a good coolat and coolant filter to keep the oil cooler clean and coolant flow up to the EGR cooler.
 

oldestof11

Observer
The EGR passages are tiny. I helped my brother bypass the EGR and upgrade the oil cooler. That truck has seen 50k miles since then and has ran a tune anywhere between 20 HP to 150 HP. No head studs were ever done and the truck had never been in a Ford shop according to the oasis report. It was an 03 so it should have been littered with problems. Truck had a little over 200k miles on it.
 

95RRC

Adventurer
I actually did a ton of research...my deltas as measured on the Edge insight are under 9 ALWAYS and the FICM is around 47...so very lucky with this one. Although as I wasn't allowed to speak with the original owner he may have done studs etc and don't know. But it performs very well and I have no complaints
I am not into the wole tuning thing to get 500+rwhp out of it, although i know it can be done. It is a very solid and dependable driver as it is
 

Eaglefreek

Eagleless
Beautiful rig and I hope you have good luck with that 6.0L. A couple weeks ago I flew to Denver to pick up a truck from another division and drive it back here. It's an '07 F350 with the 6.0L. It broke down twice on my boss before I picked it up and they spent $2400 on injectors. I made it 350 miles and broke down in the middle of nowhere Kansas. 3 days and $3,200 later, I was back on the road with a new HPOP and associated parts. Made it back no problem. A coworker of mine is working today and just called me a few minutes ago and he is broken down on the side of the road with it. Truck only has 113,000 miles. You couldn't give a 6.0l. We have 3 other 6.0L trucks and they have had similar issues.
 

mmuthart

Observer
The guy in the YouTube video above gets no respect at the diesel forums. He's apparently come to some wrong conclusions and makes some bad recommendations.

In the interest of posting accurate information, I went and found this description on www.powerstroke.org of why the 6.0 is prone to blow head gaskets. This is a quote from 2Stroker:

"You need some gauges like the Edge Insight CTS or the scanGaugeII but i think your problem is your oil cooler is getting pluggged form 1. Casting Sand 2. Silicates drop out from the Ford Gold junk coolant you need to check the deltas (difference) in ECT-EOT max is 15* if you keep going you may blow the egr cooler need gauges. I did not wright this but i read it alot.
The 6.0 is known to blow head gaskets. This is why it happens. The Ford Gold coolant contains silicates. The silicates are not able to handle high EGT's generated by a good load or relatively high boost when run through the EGR cooler. They break down into a jell like sludge and fall out of suspension. This crud gets caught up in the tiny coolant passageways of the oil cooler. As the cooler clogs up it restricts coolant flow to the egr cooler. Now the egr cooler doesn't have enough coolant to carry off the heat generated by high EGT's. The limited amount of coolant in the egr cooler flash boils causing high pressure in the cooling system and the truck pukes coolant from the degas bottle due to the pressure. (it has to go somewhere)
Your uninformed Powerstroke owner is not monitoring his coolant temps and oil temps so he doesn't know whats going on and he keeps driving it this way. The problem get worse, the pressure causes the egr cooler to rupture. Now the egr cooler is leaking coolant into the intake manifold which then runs into the cylinders. Again the high combustion temps cause the coolant to vaporize. This causes unacceptably high cylinder pressure, the TTY head bolts stretch due to the additional pressure and there go your head gaskets.

Ok now you know the problem. Here's the cure. Get a good engine monitoring solution like the Edge Insight so that you can monitor your ECT and EOT. If those temps get more than 15* apart at normal cruising when at normal operating temperature your oil cooler is clogging up. Rebuild it now to prevent all that down stream damage from occurring. Flush that Ford Gold coolant cxxp out of your engine with a couple bottles of Restore. This is made specifically to clean out that silicate residue. Now refill it with a silicate free Cat EC-1 rated ELC coolant. This removes the silicates that clog the oil cooler from the equation. If you live in an area where you don't have smog inspections delete the egr system. If you can't delete it replace the egr cooler with the cooler manufactured by Bulletproof Diesel. This is vastly superior to the Ford oem egr cooler and it will not fail on you. If you find that you need to replace head gaskets replace the TTY head bolts with ARP studs and use black onyx (Victor Reinz) head gaskets or stock Ford HG's. If you have to replace the egr cooler always replace the oil cooler. That is the source of the problem.
2 stroker"

In my research before I bought my '05 Excursion, I read accounts of even ARP Head Studs stretching, allowing head gasket failure, when the above scenario takes place. In the early days of the 6.0, the above was not understood and ARP Head Studs were thought to be the solution. If your 6.0 is healthy and your are running a conservative tune (max turbo boost under ~30PSI), stock 6.0 head bolts should be fine (based on my research). I've only put 7k miles on mine (125k total), but am betting that this is the case!!

EDIT: the above quote from 2Stroker is over a year old. In this time, the Black Onyx head gaskets have been found to be unreliable. The consensus now is to use OEM Ford head gaskets if you need to replace them.
 
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mmuthart

Observer
I spoke to a diesel shop in my area and considered having them do the 'bullet proofing' that I decided I would do. In the end, I did the work myself. Saved thousands and knew the work was done right. This is what I ended up doing to my 6.0 PSD:

- Upgraded the fuel pressure spring (blue spring upgrade).
- Upgraded the turbo oil drain tube.
- Replaced the OEM oil cooler with a new OEM cooler.
- Removed the EGR cooler with one of the many available kits.
- Rerouted my PVC hose so it vents to the atmosphere.
- Installed a coolant filter kit from one of many vendors.
- Found a used SCT Tuner and am now running a custom tune from Innovative diesel. (Required to clear the check engine light created from removing the EGR cooler).
- Purchased an Edge Insight monitor. (Allows monitoring of Engine Coolant/Oil temps, FICM voltage, etc.)
- Use Archoil 9100 in my oil.
- Use a cetane booster in my fuel.

What I did not do:

- replace the Ford Gold Coolant with ELC (Extended Life Coolant).
- replace the stock head bolts with ARP studs.
 

Acetylene

Explorer
I had a 2003 F350 6.0 and had no problems. Traded that in on a 2006 F350 6.0 and had no problems despite working this truck very hard. However, after all of the problems by friends were having I traded the 06 in on a 2008 F350 V-10. That turned out to be a very good move as the v-10 has 110,000 and has NEVER had anything wrong with it. Having said all that, your truck is gorgeous and you should be very proud of it.
 

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