Hi all. Unfortunately my first post on this forum is in the diesels in distress forum. I've been a lurker for past 6 months, with help of this forum I've learned a TON about these 6.0's, and done quite a bit of work I wouldn't have attempted without the tutorials on here. Reading a few hours a night, upgrading with every suggestion given of 6.0's weak points. With that said, I thank you all. You've saved me thousands, and got me upgraded.

I'm leaving town in 3 days, and was doing all usual maintenance before traveling across country. Truck just got returned 2 days ago with new upgraded tranny. Tonight I changed oil filter, fuel filters, topped off all fluids, and changed from rotella 15w40 to t6 5w40 since I was experiencing hard starts in midwest now that winter has come. Also changed coolant filter on sinister diesel filtration. I recently threw a FICM code, and #8 injector. No money to fix for next month, I read synthetic lower weight, and two bottles of rev-x would help for a bit. This is what I did two hours ago. Also it's been puking coolant out degas bottle for a few weeks, new cap should be here tomorrow.

Anyways, tranny was flaring up on 3-4, 3-5 shift, and even missed complete shift on light accel in 2nd gear, banged off rev limiter, took foot off throttle and it shifted into 5th (at about 20 mph). Obviously something wrong there too. This was why I disconnected batteries as I checked/replaced fluids tonight, probably two hours. Truck back together, short drive to get to temp, checked all fluids again, and set out for tranny relearn process I learned on here (N-D,D-R,etc). I did 3 light throttle take-offs from stop, to 5th converter lock-up, followed by same in tow/haul. Then I did same procedure medium throttle regular, twice in tow/haul before I smelled coolant heavily, which is normal as degas pukes regularly under heavy boost.

That's when my Edge started beeping, noticed EOT at 250. Coolant was 230. Normally have bottle of CAT ELC in truck spare, I used it to top off after coolant filter change. I was on a 15 mile stretch of straight flat road and decided to try to baby truck to get temps down to limp me home. Turned on heat full blast, blowing cold. Temps slowly declined, until heater kicked warm air out, almost instantly dropped to 170, and EOT followed to 180! EOT's never go below 225 when warm normally (truck is lifted on 37's, and I affectionately call it my 7000 lb. mustang). As quick as it went down, cold air returned and they started to climb. EOT never got above 235 again, ECT reached 240 max. As it reached 240, I'd get short burst of heat for 10 seconds, and it would drop temps again. Thought everything was fine just low on coolant and I'd make it home.

A mile from home theres a good incline (cruise was set at 55). Very faint hum-hum-hum drone last 2 miles, so faint I wasn't sure if it was my imagination or not. Going up hill, engine downshifted and it was SCREAMING. High pitched whistle, felt lack of power but unsure as I hit brake to shut off cruise and coast up hill. Truck sounded about 5x's louder than normal. Other side of hill, coasted into driveway, instantly shut off. I had edge data monitoring on for first time, in a panic I shut truck off and lost monitoring (I believe?). I still had boost the entire time. It sounded similar to blowing an intercooler pipe out of clamp, but that didn't happen.

Checked coolant, gallon low, as I have come to expect when smelling cat ELC. Topped it off, scared to start it back up. Oil still looks new, smells new, and is at full line. Whole passenger side of engine is soaked (degas purge) drivers is dry. Truck had new oil cooler installed 2000 miles ago. EGR was deleted with ARP studs installed 60k ago. I've been losing about 1mpg every 1000 miles. Although FICM reads 47.5-48 in all testing, I understand it can still be bad, and attributed lack of mpg to needing replacement. I was set to call FICMrepair tomorrow, he's somewhat local and I was going to deliver it. However, truck whistling with no power, has me terrified. Sounds almost like air leak, or spun bearing of some sort. I've put everything on the line (nearly every dollar I could earn/beg/borrow) to get to new job other side of country. As I said, leaving in few days, and looking for suggestions on where to start trouble shooting. I have no cash to take it to shop, and limited time. Truck showing no DTC on SCT. Truck is an 04 f250 (late 03 build), CC SB 6.0 Torqshift, with street tune currently from IDP. 125k, with oversize tires. I beat the hell out of it for 3 months when I bought it, ran great. The last 3 months it's been babied (when it's not broke down!).If you need any more info, let me know.

I've borrowed almost 35k to start this job, and if I don't make it there by Friday, I have no job or means to pay it back. I'm looking for any input you guys can give me, where to look to get this thing back on the road. I'll have enough money in a month of new job to fix things right if need be. Right now, a band-aid is about all I can come up with. Appologize if this is not the right forum, but I am in urgent need and figured this would get me some suggestions the quickest. I'll be reading this and (hopefully) following advice and turning wrenches first thing in morning. Thank you for what you've helped me do so far, and thanks in advance for any insight I can get on this issue.

 

A couple things, first was it the drivers side that was soaked??
Also you ECT and EOT are way out of whack, you should never see more then 15 deg seperation.
What type of head gaskets did you use? stock ford I hope.......
Are you only filling the degas bottle to the minimum line? if you fill above that it will puke.
The degas bottle can whistle when you get it that hot, it really shouldn't get much more then 190 deg, if you are not towing.
You have to find the coolant leak,
Who did all the work?

 

Thanks for the reply Bob. Yes, it is the drivers side that was soaked (under hood, top of air cleaner assembly all the way down). I picked up a stant 16 psi cap this morning locally, amazon dropped the ball on getting mine here. My deltas normally seem to be about 35 apart max, this was before and after oil cooler replacement. Coolant will run 190, EOT of 225 is highest I've seen after installing new oil cooler 3 months back. I've come to the assumption reading on here that a lifted truck, spinning bigger tires, running a hot tune, and getting romped on...that the 15* goes out the window and 225 isn't abnormally high? What's your thoughts on this?

The truck was studded and deleted when I bought it, I don't have the paperwork with me at the moment for who did the work, no idea what gaskets they used. Is there anyway to differentiate between brands with the head installed? Degas only filled to minimum. Learned that the hard way after buying truck, and was one of the first things this forum helped me with.

I believe I've found the culprit of antifreeze getting that hot. Upon further inspection of coolant jugs (I stocked up after oil cooler change as I had to drive 2 hours to find that coolant) I didn't get cases of non-diluted CAT ELC as I asked for. Instead it was factory 50/50. I further mixed it 50/50 each time I topped it off, so I was running 75* water. I should have caught it before mixing the jugs, and didn't. All my test launches were in quick succession, I'm sure that water was just a boiling in there.

I'm going to hit the road, go back, buy a few more gallons of STRAIGHT CAT ELC and pour that in to get ratio back to 50/50. If my math is correct, draining 2.5 gallons, and refilling with 2.5 straight CAT would get me pretty close to 50/50 again?


ETA- On a side note, I started truck this morning after verifying all fluids were full (even though coolant is mostly water), and it popped right off. Truck is parked at my garage, not my home, and I forgot to plug it in last night. With that said, I plug it in every night at home, and the cold starts were ROUGH for good minute or better since winter has come in the midwest. Not plugged in last night, it started just as quick, and idle smoothed out within 10 seconds opposed to minute or two with 15w40 rotella. Seems the t6/rev-x really did help. I still am not throwing a code, although battery light popped on for short time after starting. Batteries are 6 month old NAPA's. Truck has dual alt setup, the easy one to get at, appears almost brand new when I bought truck 6 months ago. When I was watching volts few days ago troubleshooting what caused FICM failure, I noted the battery v on my edge never dropped below 13.8 with headlights, air, and stereo cranked up at idle.

Extremely grateful for all advice thus far, this site rocks!

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Quick update for those reading. I've drained all coolant out of truck (except the little left in heater core, and passenger side engine block). Cannot find CAT concentrate within few hundred miles. After drain, refilled with CAT ELC 50/50 mix to min line. Truck hasn't gotten above 190, EOT hasn't got above 215. I'm scared to really step on it until I've got a few paychecks to fix any problems that might arise, but I gave it 75% throttle which would normally make it puke, and no issues this time. Runs much smoother with 5w40 t6 also. Soon as some money comes in, Ed at ficmrepair will be getting my FICM. Coolant filter cut apart this morning, that amount of crud floating through a high-tech engine is absurd.

All in all, if it wasn't for this site I wouldn't have a running truck. Just wanted to thank everyone for the help thus far. And hopefully with all the preventative "bulletproofing" mods I've learned here, I won't need too much more help to keep this thing running. As soon as I can get some money stuck back in the bank, first purchase is becoming a paid member of this site. You guys rock!

 

if you post in the 6.0 section you will get more views and more help, when I come to the site it puts me right to the 6.0 section then I look at the rest every now and then so others might be doing the same..