HELP!!! 6.0 white smoke antifreeze smell!
 

My 05 6.0 started smoking horribly the other day with some hesitation while driving,and started to overheat.We can smell antifreeze and its losing water but cant find where from. There is no service lights on at all just saying water in fuel. any ideas? and where can i find the cheapest parts or overhaul kit if i need to do that?Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!!!
:s:

this happened to mine and it ended up bein the egr cooloer. bad bad white smoke from pipes. fill up the overflow and it goes away til the water is gone again as well as overheat and lose all power in the engine.

also, is there any mods on the truck??

Do you have access to a scanner? Check your eot ( engine oil temp) and you ect ( engine coolant temp) sounds like you got either a clogged oil cooler ( which leads to blown egr cooler)

Don't even bother man, he feeds off of attention, we have reasons for loving our 6.0, he has reasons for hating them, :edit: him.

As for the OP, don't start reaching for the toilet paper yet. Is there a possibility of a blown head gasket? Yes, but not always, as gauge1325 said it is possible that it's either your EGR or oil cooler (maybe both :scare2:) but if you don't get it fixed in time then it can definitely lead to a gasket failure. Both of the coolers (and HG if you feel frisky) can be done in your driveway with a little time and tools. If you are in an area that does inspections, I recommend an upgraded EGR cooler (Sinister and BulletProof have good quality and warranties) and a new oil cooler since you will have the engine torn pretty far anyway it's only another 30 minutes or so in each direction (tear down and build up). Also if time and money permits, add a coolant filter and do a full flush (flush before the teardown, filter after). Also invest in some gauges (coolant temp, oil temp, fuel pressure and EGT at a MINIMUM). If you are handy with your hands and have a fair selection of tools then doing all of the work yourself (including ARPs and a couple other upgrades) will set you back around $3k, if you have a shop do it then you're looking in the neighborhood of $6k without the guarantee the heads will be machined true.

Back to the question. There is a easy way to check the egr cooler just pull the egr valve in the front of the engine and if it looks all nasty black and wet in there and smells like coolant its most likely a egr cooler. We have been blocking off all our egr coolers on our trucks with freeze plugs that fit in each end of the exhaust side of the egr cooler. Its cheap and easy and we havent had any problems with them ever again. Just make sure thay are a snug fit. Before u get that far in the motor i would make sure your not having oil cooler problems also usually the coolant turns all white and nasty in your degas tank but thats hard to tell when there is nothing in here. But there should be a way to test it other than that.

Did you blow a belt?

We need more info about the truck, hard to narrow it down at this point, but the guys have hit most of the common points. :pca1:

"Water in fuel light" - Could be injector cups?? but defiantly have larger issues. EGR likely but the torque to yield head bolts are almost as common of a failier expecially if you work it hard. ARPs are a 6.0's best friend then find a nice trash to stuff that EGR cooler in.

Like said above. Pull EGR valve and look for coolant. Head gaskets are almost impossible to confirm. (never a bad gasket, always stretched bolts) Scan tool to see if oil cooler blocked or working.

You have to do an EGR delete and change head studs on these.

I was told if you don`t run a tuner and pull real heavy trailers you will be fine without the ARP studs ,is that true?

If you do EGR cooler delete, put new oil cooler in after a complete coolant flush and add a coolant filter you should be fine. Clogged oil coolers cause a whole lot of problems, they can cause egr coolers to rupture, cause the oil to break down quickly and can creat steam that can cause headgasket failures and cause you to loose alot of coolant causing even more problems.

Yes bought the oil cooler already , and am just a bit concerned about not going with the ARP head studs. But my Mechanic who is a good friend and a top tech at Ford told me I will be fine without them. I am not sure which to go with the Delete is much more affordable it would seem.

I have 254k on my truck,original head bolts and I have hauled some nasty loads long distance and have had no problem

Your chances of headgaskets blowing increase with more power and harder driving, obviously. Also, studs will be more reliable than stock bolts, for sure. However, if you're running stock tuning, I would stick with the factory bolts for now. If you ever have to pull it apart for any reason, it would be a good time to upgrade though. I wouldn't go out of my way to do it now, unless it already needs gaskets or something. You should be fine.

Im back now i belive my egr cooler is weeping. Every day for the last week two or so miles from home i blow white smoke for a mile with no power. then it seems to go away. Exhaust will make ya cry when you start it. I plan to do egr cooler do i need to do oil cooler too. New hpop and oil cooler screen 8000 miles ago trucks basicly stock. let me know what your ideas are thank you

I would go ahead and do it myself. Usually the oil cooler is the root cause of the egr cooler blowing apart. A rebuild kit for the oil cooler is less than $250.

Are you putting in a new egr cooler? I'd just put a delete in myself. Unless you live in Cali, then go with a bulletproof unit.

I picked up a River city egr delete at a local shop torn down and intake bolts loose. I hope this solves my problems. When i took out egr it was sooted and a bit wet. What pulgs up in oil cooler? Are these two things piped together some how? OH and these trucks should be extended in the engine bay by 6 inches so we can work on them.

the coolant flows through the oil cooler first then to the egr cooler, these motors are sand cast and eventually the excess sand comes loose and will clog the tiny passages in the oil cooler. When the oil cooler gets clogged only a small amount of coolant gets through and when only a tiny bit of water is in the egr cooler then it can steam and blow the cooler out and also it can cause head gasket failure because the steam will damage the head gaskets.

Is there any way to clean this? Ill have it all ready in am to go again i cant wait for parts. Maybe a quick soak in gas or parts cleaned with o rings removed? The local shop said 2200 to do it i laughed and took parts.

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Next issue is my seal on rear end seems to be leaking from where drive shaft blots in. Any ideas on this and mdub 707 your like three hrs from me do you have a shop?? If so send me a messsage. Id drive for a decent go over of rig at this point.

No you can't clean it to cure it, any chemical that can eat sand would surely eat the aluminum quicker. Do what you have to do, do your egr cooer delte now and plan the oil cooler rebuild for a weekend or something, when they get clogged they can also rupture and dump oil into the coolant system. The hot oil is hard on injectors too so don't let it go on for too long before you rebuild it when you pull the intake to do the delete do yourself a huge favor and cut off the mounting flange that hold the cooler toward the back of intake, leave at least an 1/8th inch of meat on it outside of the normal shape of intake, you don't want to cut into the actual intake part and weaken it, that way when you go to do the oil cooler you don't have to remove the turbo to take the intake off, that little cast in mount is the only thing that prevents you from removing the inake past the turbo.

Wish I had a shop man. I do work on them on the side a little bit here and there, but where I'm living now I can't really do any major repairs. Oil cooler wouldn't really be a problem at all though. Looking at buying a house soon so I can hopefully do some more work on the side. I wouldn't mind doing some things though. Just shoot me a PM we can talk.

Where are you at?

Unfortunately there is no real good way that I've seen to clean the oil cooler. It seems even if they are flushed in both directions they still clog really quickly again. A coolant filter, a coolant flush, then a fresh oil cooler rebuild really seem to be the only trick that works.

So its now out had coolant inside was driping when i took camp off. Thanks for the tip on cutting off bracket. M dub just email me at bovillconstruction@yahoo.com im in Vt back to work. If coolant temp and oil temp is the same by a few degs should be fine ill test that late today at friends garage

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Its all back together and seems to have no issues. Id like to know if there is a reason that the turbo has a small hole where they join together. I had to bolt the egr in and keep pluged in but i used block off plate. Oil cooler next

Small hole????? do you meen in the joint under a clamp? from the Ypipe to turbo? if so they can be a PITA to get lined up right.