04 smokes white

[martindecorativeconcrete]

Ok started out losing coolant, thought I fixed it but keeps disappearing. Now today truck started blowing white smoke. Drove about 30 miles when it started, even when I was sitting at a light it randomlly smokes. Smells sweet allmost like coolant. Then it stopped after a bit but when I was on the highway I would get in it a little and then let off completly and it would puff a small cloud and then quit. Turn the truck off and could hear it gurgle for a sec, then quit. When I take the coolant res cap off it smokes out the hole. I know the coolants getting hot but why, nothing happened that I noticed to cause it. Gauges say its not running hot but gurgling smoke out res tells me different!

[03f250stroke]

it could very well be that you stretched the head bolts and the gaskets are bad. not really knowing anymore about your truck doesnt help either. again it could happen to stock trucks.

my truck has no more egr cooler or valve in there. my degas bottle is at min. never at max. it will puke out the bottle at max. my coolant is always boiling up in there. if i take the cap off it steams for a little while.

give some more info about the truck and see what happens over the next few days, you may need to bring it do a dealer and see what they can do

[Jarrod B]

when i did my head gasket job, i reused the bolts that was on there.
is that bad? the oil and coolant is still mixin from what i can tell.

[03f250stroke]

seriously? lol. man if you went through all that trouble why not just replace them.

why did you have to replace the gaskets in the first place?

[Jarrod B]

ok heres the deal.
the guy i bought the truck from told me it needed a hg job due to oil coolant mixin.
ok did the gaskets and had the heads basically rebuilt. the mechanic told me they reuse the bolts and supposedly doesn't have any issues doing that.

the gaskets were not blown, but changed them any way with ford gaskets,
i just changed the oil cooler.
now i found out that the heater core is leakin.

the $100 price tag for the bolts at the time was a lot due not having any money.

now i wish Ive done them.

[03f250stroke]

my next question was going to be if the heads checked out ago? were they straight?

believe me, money is tight especially when you dont even have a job! so i know that feeling.

i would look into doing the studs. but then again i dont really know too too much about the 7.3 so i dont want to steer you into the wrong direction.

[Jarrod B]

the engine shop checked both heads. they did the works.

ended up as the driver head was cracked in two places and the pass head had leakin injector cups.

bought a reman head for the driver side and had the pass rebuildt with new cups.

total bill was like $650