Head gasket problems.
 

I have a 2003 ford with a 6.0 diesel motor. It was determined that the head gasket was bad so I pulled the heads and found that the heads needed to be machined (very badly pitted). I brought it to the machine shop and they cleaned up the heads but they are now under the recommended 7.34” height by .020". The guy at the machine shop said that they usually just get a thicker gasket from some custom gasket shops which he gave me their names. The problem is that the two that he gave me do not do the 6.0 liter diesel.

Does anyone know where I can get custom gaskets for this motor?
I have APR bolts but need a fix to the gasket problem.

IMO, those heads are now scrap.

Call Doug @ GoGo and talk to him about this, he will tell you one way or the other what you should do. Direct Injection Performance - GoGoDiesel.Com, Your Source For All Things Diesel!

Ive never had any headgasket problems on my 2006 6.0, it has 140,000 miles but i popped the hood yesterday and realized the turbo is starting to leak motor oil, AGAIN, thats the second NEW garrett turbo this truck has had on it i think now its time for another brand. any recomendations? :argh:

Sorry I don't have any experience with that. My problems have only been with the head gasket.

i laughed when ford would tell us we couldnt mill the heads... i remember getting heads back for 6.0s that had 3-5 thousandths taken off and had NO issues with bending pushrods or breaking rocker arms. if you are unsure about the heads and cant find a gasket with the right compressed thickness id suggest going to a local pick n pull yard and look for an 03-04.5 early build 6.0 who knows may end up with 8 good spare injectors...

So I found a site that is selling 6.0 heads but they tell me that what they have will be under sized as well. They say that they have not had any problems sell them to people (not sure if that is really the deal or they are just trying to make a buck at peoples expense).

I can't afford buying new heads so I am considering using one layer from the old gasket which is .020 thick and adding that to the new gasket to take up the extra thickness to see if that works. Maybe sandwiching it in between the top layer and the second layer of the new.

Anyone have any thoughts on this idea.

bad idea. i wouldnt attempt it. May make issues worse. As i said before ive sent under warranty sublet machine shops to mill heads to be flat and took 3-5 thousandths off never had any issues. The only reason why ford doesnt want heads milled is due to a lack of competent machine shops and the possibility of removing too much material from the head... They dont want us even milling gas heads either.

So you don't think that the head being .020" below the recommended height of 3.74" will cause an issue with the motor. Maybe a cracked head, bent push rods, or just blowing the gasket again.

You're going to have problems. The head doesn't meet the minimum thickness that Ford calls out. Find other heads.