NEED PART INFO, 80 miles new to me, head gasket blown, WTF!!!

[Meattruck138]

Like the title says, my 2004 F350 was bought 2 weeks ago to the day. Put on 80 miles and BAM, the white snake. Coollant reservoir drained in a heartbeat, and I know im screwed. Called the dealership where I got it and got the "AS IS YOU IDIOT" speach. Here in California lemon laws do not cover used vehicles....

So rather than be mad and bad mouth my precious Ford, I figured I'd post here and get some information.

I have read that Black Onyx makes the best replacement gasket andARP for headbolts, is this true or can others chime in with specifics? My father in law is a GMC mechanic and is gonna help me with the job but i definately could use a direction to start from.

Shop manual is ordered and on the way, and I will troll some searches, but any guidance at this point would be terrific. I hate to introduce myself tot he forum under such a bad start, but what can i do right?

[mcflan]

Black Onyx? ARP makes the best studs. It's a pain in the a** unless you have a cab lift or have the knowledge of doing an in cab head removal. Several members on here have done it if you just do a general search. Hopefully all your cylinders are all good. Oh how I love California laws! Sorry to hear about your luck and welcome to the org!

[top dollar]

first off the heads dont need to come off you could just replace the egr cooler. sinister makes a good one and there are many others . i did the cab on method and it is a pain but can be done i did it with only help from this site and alot of swearing. if you just do the cooler take the injectors out and suck the any fluid out so it dont hydrolock it . if you want to do more than that arp studs are best for the buck there are stronger out there but not really worth it with a basic build. black onyx head gaskets and get a bullet proof egr cooler and dont forget the oil cooler . and good luck

[Meattruck138]

thanks a lot guys for the quick replies. Iknow itll be PITA but I will never have 4 grand for dealer repair. Swearing is still free in California, for now at least.

[top dollar]

if you do take the heads off take them to a good machine shop and get the decks checked they are known to warp or crack . if they need to take a little off to get them flat again just watch how much . ive heard of up to .009 getting taken off but i wouldnt go over .004

[DBM]

are you sure it's the HG's? Could be just the EGR cooler... however if you are up to replacing the HG's the Black Onyx and ARP studs are good enough. I did this in-cab and it is a back buster but not really hard... just the torquing of the studs and the lifting of the heads are the worst of it...

[Meattruck138]

Does this forum have any good vendors that stock all the goodies I will need? Sorry about being pretty green to this forum stuff.

[Meattruck138]

Little update. Looks like it MIGHT not be the HG. No coolant in oil (great!), but plenty of coolant covering everything else in the engine compartment. Looking more like oil cooler got clogged and blew the egr cooler as suggested in a previous post.

Best news is that I got the dealer to tow it in and "take a look to see what they can do". Hope we can reach a compromise somewhere.