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Help in Michigan - Engine went "bang"

1K views 9 replies 7 participants last post by  jimmyv13 
#1 ·
My father-in-law was driving the '04 F350 on the freeway, without warning there was a big bang, no power, and a trail of oil, followed by hot oil smoke.

Unfortunately no chance to see what happened - and I'm out of town on a business trip.

Maybe someone can speculate on the failure mode ...

In the mean time - any good recommendations for a Powerstroke repair center in Detroit area?
 
#2 ·
With any luck you may have a CAC boot blew off, with no luck the CAC itself may have blew apart. This produces a loud bang, sudden loss of power and useually a trail of oil.

This can happen when the crankcase vents too much oil droplets in its discharge combine that with a improperly sealed air filter on the backside and a high dust environment and you have a recipe for a potential disaster.
 
#6 ·
I wish you guys were right about the boot ... but so such luck.
2" hole on the left side of the block, a couple of inches above the oil pan gasket & a couple of inches from the very back face of the block. I assume a rod went through.

Really bad luck ..... standard tune, no heavy towing or heavy right foot, no sign of coolant loss prior - everything was running great - then BANG. $$$$.
 
#8 ·
Hard to say exactly. I bought the truck 4 years ago with 168,000, & now it has 181,000but I know it isn't the original engine. One of previous owners had a used engine installed - at least I'm pretty sure that was the deal rather than a reman. Don't know any more of the background than that. The sticker on the valve cover with the HP/torque info says it is a 2003, and the truck is 2004. So who knows - maybe it was a 1/2 million miler!

Guess my main concern now will be eliminating the original root cause of failure so it doesn't repeat with a new short block. I've heard hydro-locking can be either from fuel (less likely?) or coolant?

Also have to decide which goodies to upgrade to & replace. Studs, new oil cooler, etc. Don't really want to do EGR delete if that means the check engine light is always on. Anyway, I have a little time now to figure that out.
 
#9 ·
Since the engine may have a lot of miles on it, you would be best served by replacing the long block since it will come with heads that have been magnafluxed, resurfaced, and a complete valve job done already. Ours all have studs in them when you get one.
To do it right, you should replace both oil pumps, oil cooler, injectors, and delete the EGR cooler. A competant installer can turn the check engine light off for you. You should also have your FICM tested.
As far as whether it hydrolocked, it could have from a failed EGR cooler or blown head gasket (coolant) or from a bad injector (fuel) but both of those causes would be fixed by replacing the things that I mentioned. If it is a "1/2 million miler" or had poor maintenance for a period of time, it may have just crapped out.
 
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