Power Loss & White Smoke

[win4win]

Posted this on the 911 Forum but I thought I might get some good insight from the 6.0 experts here....


Thanks!

[dhanna6powerstroke]

Originally Posted by win4win

Posted this on the 911 Forum but I thought I might get some good insight from the 6.0 experts here....



2004 6.0L with 170K....stock F250 except a Banks exhaust.


Within the past 2 weeks this truck has been losing power and blowing white smoke after I drive it 15 to 20 minutes. It will be running along fine then suddenly it will drop to 1000 to 1500 rpm and will not run over 40 mph or so. (limp mode?) The more pedal you give it the more white smoke it will blow. This has happened 3 times in past 20 to 25 times the truck was driven. Pulling over, shutting it off, giving the truck a once over, then restarting resolved the problem for the time being.

In between occurances I have changed the oil, which looked fine, and changed the fuel filters of which the frame rail filter was pretty nasty. The coolant level was low so I topped it off a month or so ago. Checking it again a few days ago I noticed it was a bit low again so I have topped it off and am keeping a close watch on usage, but haven't seen anything I would call substantial yet.


After doing some searching here I was fearing the dreaded EGR Cooler failure but the intermittent nature of the symptoms and the lack of substantial coolant loss leads me to believe this might be something else. I am not getting any warning lights on the dash and I don't have access to check for throwing codes. If anyone has suggestions or ideas on what to check please let me know.

Thanks!

The coolant level should actually be just above the lowest mark on the degas bottle. If you put too much in it will create enough pressure to blow it out of the cap.