Coolant in oil and oil filters falling off

[miles97]

This a customers truck that is in my shop. It's a 03 7.3 with an automatic and 130000 miles.

This truck has been to two other shops and they have just either thrown parts at it or told the guy to replace the engine for $10000. I am a Ford Ceritified tech that quit the dealership a couple of months ago to open my own shop.

The truck has alot of anti-freeze in the oil and the the oil filter pulses(to the point it has loosend up and lost the oil once) when the engine is running. Customer states that the pulsing and oil filters coming loose happend a couple hundred miles before he noticed the sluggy oil. The other shops have replaced the oil cooler and changed the oil and there is now less than 100 miles on the oil.

1-I checked the oil pressure manually and it sits steady doesn't pulse
2-drained the oil and pressured up the cooling system it does push coolant out of the drain hole.
3-removed valve covers with cooling system pressured up and i cannot see any anti-freeze coming from around a injector sleeve.

My questions
1- could a front cover cause this if the gyrator broke?
2-Head gasket? There has been no burnt coolant or discharge from the de-gas bottle.
3- Head or Block
4-Am i missing anything

Thanks for any help

Tyson

[Dixienormous]

injector cups?

[03_Turbo7.3]

You can always toss the coolant gas analysis gauge on it, has that funky blue fluid that will turn yellow if exhaust is found in the coolant, if it does id say to start the tear down..

def sounds like a head gasket issue..but man these trucks rarely have this issue..but there are a few out there..

Any blow by on the motor?

[miles97]

No blow by to speak of. I checked temps on the exhuast ports with a temp gun they were all about the same. All the engines I've seen with bad sleeves/cups had either coolant coming out of the de-gass, you could see coolant seeping out around the injector, or there ends up having diesel in the coolant.


No techs that have had this problem????

[444 ci]

oil cooler bad or seals need replaced on the oil cooler?

[miles97]

Just replaced.
Anbd doesn't explain the pulseing..

[nielsencc86]

Have you done any compression tests? I wonder if they had crap coolant not elc and has problems eating away the block?

[miles97]

Compression good across the board.
Finally got time yesterday to pull the engine yesterday. I'm sending the head to the machine shop tomorrow to be checked. And have found a good short block.

Did talk to a tech that said he had ran into 1 or 2 over the years that did the same thing and it ended up being a cracked block. He says the webbing around the main caps cracks and runs into a water jacket around one of the piston sleeves.
It does explain the water and the pulsing(piston going up and down).

I'll inspect in the next couple days and let you know.