No Heat! Blowing Coolant

[GONZ]

New to the site. Have spent the last two hour here. Love it. I have a 02' 7.3 turbo with 240K on it. It stopped blowing heat, then would start again. Temp gauge would almost max when I had heat. Shut heater off, temp gauge would fall. Leave off for a minute, and turn it back on-same thing. Had a buddy put in new thermostat. Had heat, but he wasn't sure he had system bled out. Ran it for 5 miles and blew all coolant out. There also has been a lot of smoke. Had so called diesel mechanic look at it, and he's a little stumped because he really does not see head gaskets go on this engine. Says it might be a cracked head. I know that means I'd be you know what. Does anyone know of any other possible reasons this might be happening. I was getting ready to sell this thing for about 12K. Cracked head=new engine=10K, again, I'd really be you know what. HELP! Thanks!

[Highwaywrench]

Sounds like a good one... ugh

Ok, head gasket, possible, but rare on the 7.3 / 444e, Cracked head, seen a couple, but once again, pretty rare, these heads are built fairly well.

Cracked cylinder wall. Very high chance of that one. From my experience, # 7 or #8. Most I have seen have been #7.

Now, this is not to say that a simple solution won't be found, just voicing some experience here. The basic design of the engine allows combustion gases into the cooling passages at the cylinder walls, head gasket surface, or.... The injector cups if something is horribly wrong with one of your heads. It would take a combination failure of the seating surface in the head, a bad copper washer, a loose injector clamp, perhaps a blown off injector tip, and perfect alignment of the planets... but it COULD happen.

Best thing to do, is pressurize the cooling system with it full of water, and see where the water comes out. Drain the oil, and watch to see if water comes out of the crankcase. While you're at it, pull your turbo, and see which up pipe is clean, or has white residue, that will tell you which side of the engine to look at.

On the t-stat change. These things normally self bleed quite well, but some of them can be an absolute bear to get the air out of. And when they do burp, they spew coolant everywhere. Best tool to use is a vacuum bleeder on the overflow tank, it will let you get all the trapped air out, then draw coolant in to fill the void.


Good luck with it.

[GONZ]

Thanks! Highwaywrench. You really sound like you know your stuff. It's all greek to me. I will ask these mechanics about what you thought. Any thoughts on what a crack cylinder wall might cost? Thanks again. Gonz

[dazdillenger]

Sounds like you have a cracked cylinder liner. Get some test strips from napa and check for combustion chamber gases in the coolant.