Heavy Trailer/ Ford 6.0

[boatdoc]

Is there anyone else on here a little concerned about the headgaskets in the Ford 6.0 when pulling the larger trailers. Seems to be several posts over on the diesel sites about the gaskets getting kicked out with the extra power needed to haul our monsters around. Sure we're covered under the 5/100,000 warranty but just the possible downtime and who knows where it would happen has got me a little concerned. I've had turbo problems on the 04 and on the 06 and it isn't fun pulling this thing around without the turbo working correct.
We were killing some time today and looked at the 08 Dodge 3500 and kinda got me thinking. Now with this merger, who knows what's going on and if Dodge will even be around.

 

[rideblue]

I think most of the guys who has head gasket problems were running programmers and boosting too much. Also, maybe Ford changed head studs in the '06 and beyond because of all the problems, not sure. I do know that the later the model the better the motor as far as problems. Your '06 may be good to go.

 

[Tom of Ypsi]

I would not worry too much about the merger with Chrysler and GM. The government is not going to give GM any money for a bailout. The word on the street was the new GM/Chrysler truck would be the Cummins engine with a redesigned body.

I think most problems with the 6.0 werre with the '03 model year and corrected. The other problems seem to be with people chipping their trucks. Mine is having long cranking problems before starting up so I am going in to the shop this week and will keep you posted on what the problem is.

 

[blackfin]

FYI: in our business(new home contracting) and with several friends who use both 6.0 and 6.4 for pulling heavy trailers, trucks are staying in the shops both 450 and 550 for various issues. very thankful for a 7.3 backup. To get the power, boost has become an issue with both engine designs if you are not monitoring EGT temps I would highly recommend you to do so.

 

[nhunter]

The original head gasket problem was Ford used the wrong studs. They used a torque to yield stud that was under torqued. This allowed the head to flex under high load and blow the gasket. They now torque the studs to the yield of the stud and no more problems.

 

[egnors]

There has also been headgasket revisions made, to go along with the proper head torque specs to keep things as they should be.

 

[boatdoc]

I was under the impression Ford used bolts not studs and these were the problem, they would stretch under hard loads. Have they indeed gone with better bolts and if so what year did they start. I know there are aftermarket head studs by ARP and they work but the heads must come off to use them.

 

[nhunter]

I was under the impression Ford used bolts not studs and these were the problem, they would stretch under hard loads. Have they indeed gone with better bolts and if so what year did they start. I know there are aftermarket head studs by ARP and they work but the heads must come off to use them.

Might have been bolts instead of studs ,but the error was still the same. They fixed the problem for 06

 

[egnors]

International still builds them with TTY bolts, but there was an issue with the torque specs like nhunter said. Even the 6.4 has TTY bolts on the heads, but they are in a different arrangement than the 6.0 to try and hold down better.