Another 6.0 bites the dust!

For starters I have a 2006 F-250 with a 6.0 and about 58,000 miles on it. Since I'm a diesel mechanic I'm very thorough with maintence since I know all the problems with this engine, but untill now no major problems with it. We were driving home from a great week of camping and thought the only worries we had was going to work on Monday. Truck was running great like it always has and then all of a sudden a bang, a miss, some smoke, and no power. Of corse this had to happen while towing the BH. Lucky for me I was only about 50 miles from home, so I called a friend to come and take the BH home for me, and then had the truck towed to the Ford dealer that does all of the warranty work for me. 2 days later they called and said it was a bad injector and I would have the truck back the next day. The next day came and went and no truck. The next moring the dealer calls and says it still has a dead cylinder with no compression and they have to pull the head to find out why. The next call from them was to tell me that they found a broken exhaust valve and it needs 1 head and a block, but we all have to wait for the area Ford rep to come and look at it and verify what happened for it to be covered under thier warranty. So here I sit truckless waiting for Ford. ( updates to follow )

You must understand, I have a 2006 F250 6.0 with 123,000 miles on it. I don't want to hear about these things.

I have had to do some repairs under warranty and some not under warranty. A/C system, fuel pump, water pump and thermostat were not under warranty, but the FICM and a couple of injectors were under warranty. There is a place called Powerstroke Magic in Houston that I am going to have an EGR Block installed. I have been having the fan come on quite often and know one knows what is causing it. I read an article that the golden (color) antifreeze cause the oil and egr coolers to plug up.

BC

TXBobcat said:

You must understand, I have a 2006 F250 6.0 with 123,000 miles on it. I don't want to hear about these things.

I have had to do some repairs under warranty and some not under warranty. A/C system, fuel pump, water pump and thermostat were not under warranty, but the FICM and a couple of injectors were under warranty. There is a place called Powerstroke Magic in Houston that I am going to have an EGR Block installed. I have been having the fan come on quite often and know one knows what is causing it. I read an article that the golden (color) antifreeze cause the oil and egr coolers to plug up.

BC

Click to expand...

Do you know the temperatures of your oil and coolant? I am a long way from Texas but my money is on a slowly failing oil cooler. Blocking the EGR flow will not fix the problem. 15 degrees F is the maximum difference at operating temperatures. Have you had coolant blown out the overflow/degas bottle cap yet? If so. you may have already compromised the EGR cooler and an "EGR block" will not stop the coolant from eventually entering the combustion chamber...time for a new oil cooler and a pressure test on the EGR cooler. There is more to the issue than the "Gold" coolant.

Regards

In my experience the Gold Coolant is for Gas and light duty diesels and not for the medium duty diesel engines such as the 6.0L by IH.
It needs to be flushed out before 100k and replaced with a Heavy Duty coolant approved by IH. The G05 coolant was a mistake by Mercedes Benz in 2000 and now we are finding the results with our trucks out of warranty. I chose to stay away from the Ford Service center so I will have a very dependible truck. And yes the EGR cooler has nothing to do with failures, it's the oil cooler that collects the sludge deposited by the improper Gold coolant.

I removed my oil cooler last fall and cut it to see the plugging in the passages. The passages had lots of air resistance at the time.
This spring I looked at my cooler again and noticed the the passages looked dried up so I blowed in the water connection and no more resistence. That tells me I am right that its just a sludge that collects and can dry out. Now I regret not saving my cooler and see if it was usefull again after drying out.

I wish I did not change my cooler last fall to see if the ELC would clean the cooler as it did the rest of my cooling system. I have a friend with high delta on the oil cooler and we plan to do a clean flush and give it a test and see if my assomption will work he just uses his truck to plow in the winter, so no summer work.

P.S. I also use the ScangaugeII with great results and feel that everyone towing a trailer should learn to use one. If a breakdown happens you will be shown by the gauge before it does happen. I came home from Florida, 2000K miles, with a falling FICM module and was able to baby it till I got home. So well that it never started the next day untill I repaired it. I knew right away it was the FICM and never needed expensive Ford tech to tell me the problem.

It's apparently "fix a Ford " week. Bad fan clutch, sticking turbo vanes and an ABS speed sensor. Works awesome when it works, which is 99.99% of the time, and has never left us stranded, but we're on number 10 of the 25 or so sensors on this thing. All in all, compared to a new truck, the 05 6.0 costs less, even with the trips to the repair shop.

While I do not have a problem with the Gold coolant, knock yourself out if you want to completely flush the system and go to another coolant. I will say that the Ford boards do not ring off the hook with anti Gold coolant posts. Just make sure you are at 100% distilled water content before you start the refill procedure.

caissiel
I have a question for you....
If your saying the Gold Coolant is bad and your not using it, what are you using now? If I go to a Ford Dealership and have them clean out all the coolant, would I have a chance of getting them to us a different coolant? I may just find someone in the Dallas area put in a EGR Block and replace the oil filter with a better one.

I saw a post of someone that had a dealer near Fort Worth and wonder if they would do it..

I am using an Edge CTS Meter System to check the temps on my truck.


Temps without the trailer:
ECT (Engine Coolant Temp) 190
EOT (Engine Oil Temp) 195
TCT (Transmission Temp) 175 (said should run about 90* more than outside temp.)

Temps with trailer:
ECT (Engine Coolant Temp): 200
EOT (Engine Oil Temp): 220
TCT (Trans Temp): 197

These are about what I am getting normally. When I start to pull up a grade the EOT gets up to 230 the cooling fan will come on. I am not sure but I think I was told that when the EOT gets to 250 I should be careful if it gets up to 300 I am going to have a problem. On this gauge I am also watching my exaust temp and it will run up to 1100 but if it gets to 1400 I am suppose to let off the pulling to let it cool down.

I am going to try and get more information about this as time gose by.

I appreciate this thread. Good information.

I met one person that use the Edge CTS Meter.. Any one else use it. Also I do not have the stuff to make it put more horse power in it, but maybe next year I will add it.

BC

TXBobcat said:

caissiel
I have a question for you....
If your saying the Gold Coolant is bad and your not using it, what are you using now?

Click to expand...

He mentions ELC in his post, and since ELC is a huge improvement and upgrade over the Ford "Gold", I'd wager he's using ELC.

A Heavy Duty Extended Life Coolant (ELC) is an Organic Acid Technology (OAT) coolant.

HD ELC's use carboxylate inhibitors to prevent cavitation by chemically interacting with the metal surface, rather than forming a protective layer of inhibitors like a SCA charged "green" coolant does.

Ford's "Gold" G-05 coolant is a hybrid OAT coolant that contains a mix of conventional inorganic technology and fully carboxylate or organic technology. It is not a true, HD ELC, just a universal hybrid, one-size-fits-all coolant that Ford uses in its entire line up that, with the exception of the Powerstroke, are all gasoline engines. Ford simply uses the "Gold" in the 7.3L and 6.0L PSD's out of convenience, simplicity, cost, and uniformity throughout it's product line and dealerships.

The "Gold" coolant contains conventional "green" coolant components, like silicates, which eventually form microscopic abrasives that eat water pump seals. The "Gold" provides a lower level of cavitation protection using traditional SCA's like nitrite, it has a shorter life, it's not as effective as an ELC at heat transfer, and in some applications, requires testing and SCA maintenance (just like the conventional "green" coolant) if you are an enthusiast about protecting your engine.

In fact, Ford recommends you add SCA's to the "Gold" in certain F-Series applications. Caterpillar and John Deere also recommend adding SCA if it is going to be used in their diesels.

Ford's H-OAT "Gold" coolant will not meet International's heavy duty diesel B-1 specification. A Heavy Duty ELC will.

The "Gold" will work, but it's not the best.

There are many modern Heavy Duty Extended Life Coolants specifically designed for diesels. Delo ELC, Rotella ELC, International's Fleetrite ELC, CAT ELC, Mobil 1 ELC, and a host of others.

Personally, I like and use Chevron Delo HD ELC in my F250 and Excursion. It's good for 7 years or 750k miles, or 10 years and 1 million miles with an extender.

Stewart

I don't like to push one product more then the other but IH has been using the Fleetrite ELC EC-1 Cat approved coolant in our model engine for their fleet of trucks. The Rotalla ELC has been well published as been the best. The Zerex Heavy Duty ELC has been available at most dealers. I buy the flush coolant from our International dealer, best prices in town.
I used the Final Charge ELC in my truck. But all ELC Heavy duty coolant has the same caracteristic and completely compatible with each other. Even they publish that the use of distilled water is not realy recommended. How much deposit is there in 3.5 Gallons of water anyway. My truck was a lease through Ford services system included and never tampered with. The Ford story I don't buy its a story to make an Engineer rethink all the work we have done with Heavyduty diesels for the last 40 years. In my company we never ever did had to use distilled water in our equipment, and coolant was never an issue.

I heard coolant being an issue when I drove VW diesels, that if I did not use VW antifreeze the oil cooler would plug. And in 20 years of VW ownership I used Heavyduty Aluminium compatible localy made antifreeze that we used in our Heavy equipment by the barrel, and never saw as much dirt that came out of the cooling system of my truck last fall, in any engine we worked on. I am a true believer that proper maintenance of the cooling system will reward an engine, and in 40 years never had any engine failures and i keep my vehicles for a long time.

Look at what coolant they are using in the 2011 Ford Diesels, Its surely not the gold G05. Its a similar product as the Dex-Cool in the GM but not exactly the same formula. What are they trying to pull over our eyes, I already know that Ford OEM parts are 300% the cost of International parts. And we are so exited when they make a product that outsells other company's come on now.

Thanks Stewart, you have explained the ELC caracteristic the way I see it.

My temperatures while towing are not as bad as yours for sure.
With a new cooler I get 192F and EOT 197F or a deferential of 5 to 7
Towing our 15K trailer it is 192/197F and 199/205F or a diferential of 7 to 8

My truck has been great at towing by keeping the temperatures at low levels, and since using the scangaugeII on fan speed I have noticed that the programer allows the coolant temperature to approch 197F most of the time while towing, it seam its to save on fuel allowing the fan to start less or run at lower RPM.

caissiel said:

Even they publish that the use of distilled water is not realy recommended.....In my company we never ever did had to use distilled water in our equipment, and coolant was never an issue.

Click to expand...

Deionized waster is what is recommended to be used with a Heavy Duty ELC. Since deionized water isn't readily available for most people, distilled water works as a quality substitute.

Here is what the noted coolant expert "Gooch" (as he's known on other forums) has to say about using tap water instead of distilled water:

Even some of the best tap water will contain undesirable minerals, dissolved salts, and acids. Those components, like calcium, iron, magnesium, carbonates, hydroxides, nitrates, and so on, not only reduce the life of the coolant, but they reduce its ability to protect the cooling system. Those of us experienced with cooling systems know that tap water undoubtedly leads to exacerbated cooling system failures.

Since tap water is not pH neutral, it changes the desired alkalinity of the coolant formulation when mixed with the coolant. Distilled water, although not always completely mineral-free, is generally more neutral than reverse osmosis and purified water.

By using proper cooling system maintenance, you won't need to worry about having your radiator rodded or replaced.

You could flush with tap water, as long as your tap water was exceptional. Otherwise it is best to make your final flush(es) with distilled water. Always fill with distilled water.

It doesn't matter what conditions you operate your vehicle under. Coolant with distilled water will always protect your cooling system better and longer than tap water.

Using tap water for coolant maintenance...is second-rate maintenance. That is not opinion, but a well-known fact.

Where coolants are concerned, the facts are the facts. Using tap water will have consequences down the road...reduced protection, reduced coolant life, increased maintenance, and premature repair. Using tap water is sloppy, second-rate work.

Like the Ford "Gold" G-05 hybrid OAT coolant, tap water will work, it's just far from the best use for our vehicles.

Stewart

TXBobcat said:

caissiel
I have a question for you....
If your saying the Gold Coolant is bad and your not using it, what are you using now? If I go to a Ford Dealership and have them clean out all the coolant, would I have a chance of getting them to us a different coolant? I may just find someone in the Dallas area put in a EGR Block and replace the oil filter with a better one.

I saw a post of someone that had a dealer near Fort Worth and wonder if they would do it..

I am using an Edge CTS Meter System to check the temps on my truck.
View attachment 13691

Temps without the trailer:
ECT (Engine Coolant Temp) 190
EOT (Engine Oil Temp) 195
TCT (Transmission Temp) 175 (said should run about 90* more than outside temp.)

Temps with trailer:
ECT (Engine Coolant Temp): 200
EOT (Engine Oil Temp): 220
TCT (Trans Temp): 197

These are about what I am getting normally. When I start to pull up a grade the EOT gets up to 230 the cooling fan will come on. I am not sure but I think I was told that when the EOT gets to 250 I should be careful if it gets up to 300 I am going to have a problem. On this gauge I am also watching my exaust temp and it will run up to 1100 but if it gets to 1400 I am suppose to let off the pulling to let it cool down.

I am going to try and get more information about this as time gose by.

I appreciate this thread. Good information.

I met one person that use the Edge CTS Meter.. Any one else use it. Also I do not have the stuff to make it put more horse power in it, but maybe next year I will add it.

BC

Click to expand...

TBC

In my experience, your towing temperatures delta between eot and ect is too high. Short trips above the 15 degree delta while climbing or pulling hard are acceptable only if the temps return to less than 15 degrees difference quite quickly after the hard pulls end. A return to a steady 20 degrees delta is a sign of a failing oil cooler. Please do not let this happen. BTDT, what a mess.

Have you seen any "puking" of coolant out of the overflow/degas bottle? If so, you have begun the process of destroying your EGR cooler. I do not want to be the little boy who cries wolf here but I have lived this nightmare. I highly recommend a preemptive strike at the overheating EGR cooler problem. That starts with replacing the oil cooler. If you want more information, send me a PM.

Regards

The Ford rep showed up and verifed everything, so I have to wait for all the parts to come in. The service advisor told me it only take a couple of days for the parts to get here. I just hope I can trust it again, because if it breaks down on me again it'll be time to go truck shopping!

I've got the truck back and running just great but only time will tell. Have to take the BH to Camping World this weekend for some work so i"ll see how well it does towing.