Hi Guys!! This is actually MS RUDY,, doing the typing.. I am the computer person in the family and he is the mechanic (who does not always explain things well) so If we say something that sounds OFF,, it is due to a lack of communication between the two of us.. I will do the best I can..

My husband has been pretty decent with mechanics on this truck in the past but this one has him stumped. Any help will be appreciated

2004 6.0 Ford Lariat
224k miles:
Daily Driver occasionally pull a trailer with mid sized farm tractor..
2nd Owner
I have no history or records from previous owner.. (divorce situation, wife sold the truck but knew nothing about it)

A Few months ago we performed EGR DELETE and Replaced a very NASTY oil cooler.. put everything back together and the truck ran great but had a small coolant leak..and fuel economy started going to crap.. NO SMOKE I was told the leak was at the oil cooler gasket .. so last week I took everything back apart, checked the oil cooler, the gasket was good but found the leak was at the EGR DELETE,, all he had to do was tighten the hose clamp at the intake manifold... So we put everything back together just as is was before (we thought) and suddenly had an oil leak at the turbo.. (only ran it for a couple of minutes in the garage before spotting the leak) Turns out there was a loose drain tube on the turbo only lost about a quart of oil.. refilled oil, washed motor down and drove the next day.. suddenly getting loss of power and fuel economy is really, really bad.. (like from about 12MPG to 5MPG bad)... I still have no smoke but my tail pipe is black and chalky.. .. Oh,, Also.. when we attempted to plug in the engine oil sensor the plug broke off the pig tail,, so we replaced the pig tail, the new plug would not fit.. ended up replacing the whole pressure sensor and thought that would solve the problem.. but it did not ..PLEASE HELP..

 

The best thing you can do is to get a phone app and an OBDII adapter so you can download a good scan tool.

ForScan Lite is best with the i-phone (need a WiFi adapter). Torque Pro is good for the Android (need a Blue Tooth adapter). I think ForScan Lite will now work well on an Android, but I do not know for sure. The best tool is the full version of ForScan downloaded to a Windows laptop, but that is beyond most peoples desire for troubleshooting.

I like the price and performance mix of the BAFX brand adapters. The OBDLink adapters are probably the best, but expensive.

ForScan Lite is absolutely the best you can get in a phone app for reading codes. Do NOT use a tuner and expect to get a thorough scan for codes or operating parameters.

In the meantime, closely inspect the VGT actuator connector on your turbo. It is common for that connector to fail and the wiring at the connector to fail.

Hopefully you will get even more help here or on the TDG forum, but on ANY forum, most of the knowledgeable people hate to guess (ie they want data from the PCM - codes and operating parameter data).

 

If you do not know where the VGT actuator is, then just say so and I can post a picture.

 

BISMIC1 .. NAILED IT!!! Thank You so very much for your help,, We found the problem...1st we "cleaned" the catalytic converter, that helped a little but still not a lot of power, after your suggestion, started looking at at electrical components, found we had Lost ground to Turbo. The connectors came loose, Soldered them and "BAM" Problem solved, got more power now than we ever have..So much that it blew the air cooler line LOL.. that was easy, just had to put it back on. More Power, Lower RPMs, Fuel economy seems to have come back. Now we can start LOVING our truck again. Also, we do have the Forscan tool with the laptop program, But since I (ms Rudy) am the computer person and it has been a while since I ran it, I seem to remember last time we used it that it gave us a whole lot of info .. but we did not know how to interpret some of it.. IE,, it would give us certain specs or numbers but we did not know what the number SHOULD be, so had no comparisons.. so we had skipped that step, thought maybe someone would see something obvious just by knowing what had been done if we posted in here and YEP,, You nailed it!! .. Thank you again for your help..

Lynn and Rudy Strickland

 

Glad to help.

Quite frankly I wasn't sure you were going to check back in. You waited awhile to post again.

Oh - and if you have time, post the solution over on TDG. It might help someone in the future that only goes to that forum.