My EGR cooler finally blew I think.

[Banshee365]

My 85k mile truck had never been in the shop for motor work. Just finished a coolant filter install only a coule of days ago. Truck has been taking coolant, I thought it was just air pockets coming out from the filter. I left the house today and looked into my mirror to see steam pouring from the exhaust. I turned around and went home and shut it down. Called the dealer to make sure the bypass filter wouldn't be a problem. He said it shouldn't. So I took it in and dropped it off.

It failed like 2 days the coolant filter install. Coincidence? Or were the leaks plugged by debris and when filtered out the leaks opened? Kind of weird. My 5 yr warranty is up in June so I guess at least it happened now. Part of me wants them to void my warranty over the filter so I can just delete it. He also said gaskets only fail if the truck is overheated after and EGR cooler leak and never for hydrauliced cylinders, how's that sound. Hope they at least do a leakdown test.

[Banshee365]

Think the EGR cracking and coolant filter install are related at all since they happened within day's apart? Kind of ironic? I was wandering if more coolant it going through the filter causing less to flow to the coolers but the filter is a bit downstream of the coolers so it should have no effect on flow to them, just the heater core.

[Planerdude]

Mine Just went last week at 95,000 miles. Yours would of failed anyway. They ALL FAIL. Make sure they replace the OIL Cooler and the EGR cooler at the same time. The real problem is the OIL Cooler. The coolant side plugs up in turn causes the EGR cooler to crack. The OIL COOLER is the REAL Problem. I used the upgraded coolers from bulletproof diesel.com. CHANGE YOUR COOLANT EVERY YEAR.

[Banshee365]

Well, I can't blame the oil cooler or EGR cooler for plugging. It's been running 2,600 hours with mud, sand, grit, rust, etc... in the system. I flushed it several gallons of simple green cleaner and VC-9 block cleaner and thouht I had it pretty darn clean about 20k ago. Well I just finish putting together my own coolant filter the past few day's and when I cut into the heater hose I couldn't believe what came out. It was big chunks of reddish/brown grit and nastiness. I thought my flush I spent all day on, just about, was a huge improvement. That's not the case. Seemed to only break more stuff loose in there. What really made me finish my coolant filter setup was when I took a sample from the bottom of the radiator for a nitrtie level sample and what looked like coffee came out the first few ounces. That did it for me and I had the filiter finished up the next day after waiting a day on some nice ball valves. Changing the coolant isn't the problem. Keeping it clean is. If you change your coolant every year without a coolant filter you're not doing much more than keeping the freezepoint down and SCA's okay. I wouldn't run a coolant filter on my M35A2 deuce and a half because all the coolant does is cool the block. But on the 6.0 I now, along with many others, consider it a MUST DO mod and should be kept up with as much as an oil change or fuel filter change. The coolant does so much and effects so many parts of the engine that it just simply has to be filtered for longevity. I'll probably cut my filter open after 500 miles to see what it looks like after a VERY thorough "contaminated cooling system flush" per Ford's TSB that's been done recently. It sure didn't do as much as I thought it would but I would do it again in a heartbeat. At least it's getting taken care of under warranty and I'll have 2 new coolers with clean coolant from now on. Now to keep the head gaskets together...