Please help

[06 F350 6.0]

First let me start off by saying that joining this forum was the best money spent in a very long time! Everyone on here has been very informative and the amount of knowledge out there just blows me away!! THANK YOU ALL!

I need some help, I feel there may be a serious issue with my wonderful 6.0..

I purchased this truck pretty much as is with 40K miles on it, and it's been GREAT! It pulls my tractors without even a second thought. For about the last 6 months I've been consuming coolant, and even blowing coolant out of the degas bottle when pulling loads. Well, I received some bad info and was told that the cap on the degas bottle was bad and needed to be replaced. I chose to ignore what I thought was a minor issue. Just recently I started blowing a substantial amount of white steam, and drove the truck about 3 more times (only to take the kiddos to school and back) before the engine became hydro-locked.
So I joined this forum and my head began to spin as I learned what I had to look forward to with this engine. I ordered an EGR delete kit off of EBAY, an oil cooler replacement kit, a turbo rebuild kit, and intake gaskets from the Ford dealership.
Even though this repair is pretty straight forward and can more than likely be done by this novice mechanic, I just want to start by saying I'm just a step above the novice. Not claiming to be a auto/diesel doctor of any type, just want to give a little background on the idiot behind the wrench here.... Certifed auto and diesel tech with a degree from UTI in auto and diesel technology. Let me follow that up by saying, I'm STUMPED here!
I performed the work to clear the hydro-lock, deleted the EGR cooler, cleaned everything, reassembled and performed the cooling system flush, tore it back down and replaced the oil cooler. Once everthing was built back up I fired her up and went for a test drive. It felt GREAT on the surface roads, and I was feeling good. Then I hit the freeway.....
I barely got up to 55 MPH and went to swith into the center lane when I heard a load BANG from under the hood. I lost power. I had enough to get home, just couldn't really accelerate very much. Boost gauge was still measuring. I think this is a good place to stop boring you with all this jibberish and just attach some pictures of what I found when I got home and popped the hood.

Can anyone tell me what in the world happened? I'm super stressed and worried here. Thanks in advance for any help and insight.

[bismic]

What boost levels did you see?

[a2elvis]

Looks to me like the the intercooler pipe popped off the intake elbow. That was most likely the loud bang. Wasnt there a clamp that held the intercooler pipe to the intake elbow?

[macoyle]

First off welcome to the forum, Second what codes are being thrown if any, do you have gauges, if so what temps or boost levels were you running. Are you running stock tuning, programmer, custom tunes? Thanks

[06 F350 6.0]

Mark - I really didn't get into it enough to see an high boost levels, I think the highest I saw was about 10 to 15.

@ a2elvis - When I noticed the pipe disconnected I was thinking that might be the bang I heard. What happened to cause that, and why is there oil in the pipe? I believe the clamp is still in place, is it supposed to be an actual clamp that can be tightened?

[briandv8]

X2, intercooler piping blew off, Replace, check for cracks in the plastic ones and, button it back up. any engine codes? You have alot more oil in your tubes than I do, might consider a CCV mod.

[macoyle]

Easiest fix would be if somehow your piping fell off your intake elbow, but lets get back to you losing coolant, how low did you allow it to get and have you searched the head gasket issue on these trucks? If you lost boost that would make your truck have power but would be slow as hell to get you back home. For the oil in your tubes look into the CCV mod

[06 F350 6.0]

macoyle - No good gauges yet, just what I'm seeing on the bully dog outlook. I will run out real quick and check for codes, standby...

[a2elvis]

Originally Posted by 06 F350 6.0

Mark - I really didn't get into it enough to see an high boost levels, I think the highest I saw was about 10 to 15.

@ a2elvis - When I noticed the pipe disconnected I was thinking that might be the bang I heard. What happened to cause that, and why is there oil in the pipe? I believe the clamp is still in place, is it supposed to be an actual clamp that can be tightened?

Im sure there is a clamp that can be tightened on that part where the intercooler pipe connects to the intake elbow. Was it there before the teardown?

[briandv8]

Originally Posted by a2elvis

Im sure there is a clamp that can be tightened on that part where the intercooler pipe connects to the intake elbow. Was it there before the teardown?

Yes there is a clamp there to be tightened.