Head Gasket?

[Oil_Man]

2007 6.0 - The Degas bottle spewed coolant when pulling a 29ft bumper pull (6500 LB). Ford said cracked degas bottle & bad cap. Everything is fine during normal running. Pulled trailer to San Antonio from Houston - noticed the degas bottle was empty when I got there. Filled it up and ran all over San Antonio - no problems - no over heating. Pulled trailer back to Houston- had to keep adding water.
Ford says no problems found - any ideas?

[NYC F-350]

What did Ford do to test it?

[PGreenSVT]

What are your oil temps and coolant temps. More important what is the delta between them.

[a2elvis]

The coolant has to go somewhere... Either on the ground or into the engine via the egr cooler. The coolant spewing out of the bottle can be from the cooling system over pressurizing(heads). Have also seen the bottle overfilled causing the same symptom. Doesnt leave enough room for expansion.

[Oil_Man]

Ford tells me they did a pressure check - everything was ok.
The truck doesn't overheat - it did when it was completely empty but after that I kept stopping and adding distilled water.
There is no sign of water in the oil.
Definetly goes out the cap - the entire area around the degas bottle has coolant spray.

[NYC F-350]

At an absolute minimum, your egr cooler and your oil cooler are gone and need to be replaced. If you have been driving it since that dealership that told you that, that raises the chances of head gasket failure. The exhaust pressure is getting into the coolant stream via a breach internal to the egr cooler. That over-pressurizes the cooling system, causing the puking. Why the dealership didn't discover this is beyond me. Did you specifically tell them you were losing coolant? If so, there is a TSB (number 09-8-3 To read this, google "Ford TSB for coolant loss") that has a specific testing procedure to determine if the issue is the egr/oil cooler or the egr/oil cooler with head gasket failure. Those are the only two ways your truck will puke coolant.
By the way, when the head gaskets fail on this engine, it is uncommon to discover coolant in the oil or oil in the coolant.

The failure of the egr cooler (caused by a plugged oil cooler) is the leading cause of head gasket failure. The leaking egr cooler leaks coolant into the engine, creating higher cylinder pressure than the stock head bolts were designed to withstand. The head bolts stretch under that pressure and the head gaskets fail.

[Oil_Man]

So Ford made me bring my trailer to the service center, hook up to my truck and pull it about 10 miles. Sure enough the degas bottle pucked. When we got back, they tested it if for fuel gases in the degas bottle. Sure enough it was a successful failure. Mechanic said Ford used to just fix it, now they require approvals. Hey Ford, after the first time, I monitored it twice with the same result.
For the tech's - the Mechanic monitored on his laptop while I drove. He said the temperatures spiked I think 230 Deg F, but the delta temperatures were just barely over the limit. 15 Deg F max, they got to 16 or 17.

[NYC F-350]

15 is the limit, 16 is a fail. Replace oil and egr coolers or risk head gasket failure.

[Oil_Man]

Ford tell me the head gasket is bad, they are tearing it down now. But I asked if they could install the ARP studs. This Ford dealership won't do it. Any ideas on how to convince Ford to install ARP's? They should be rated better than OEM.

[a2elvis]

Originally Posted by Oil_Man

Ford tell me the head gasket is bad, they are tearing it down now. But I asked if they could install the ARP studs. This Ford dealership won't do it. Any ideas on how to convince Ford to install ARP's? They should be rated better than OEM.

Once again we have no control over our own trucks! If its under warranty might be hard to get them to do anything other than stock crap. Good luck oil man!! Give em hell!