Hello all. New owner of my first diesel – an 04 F-350 PS 6.0 w/ 140k miles on it. And as I’m finding out, a poor purchase in respect to how much I paid and how much I bit off with it. But setting aside my personal shortcomings on the purchase, I’m trying to get the truck in shape while taking a crash course in diesel maintenance.
In short, I’m looking for some insight. It’s an early 04 I believe – the valve cover (pass side) says 2003 on the sticker. Presently I’m 99% sure of a blown head gasket. I believe I have lots of supporting data on that: it has factory bolts; the cooling system goes to max pressure in under 2 minutes from starting cold and holds steady at max thereafter. No white smoke that I can detect on start or otherwise. When running, the cooling system level raises from "min" to above “max” almost immediately and the cap (which I tested OK at 18 lbs.) dribbles a small amount of (red/gold?) coolant. Coolant is very clean. It loses a small amount of coolant along the way, probably due to the loss from the cap. So at present I’m planning on changing the head gasket and replacing the bolts with studs. A local place said they would do it (and other stuff along the way) for 6k. I’m sure they’d do an awesome job, but I just don’t have 6k after buying it and can’t see spending that much in addition to what I have into it already. Other local garages either don’t inspire any faith or just flat out reject the job. I’ll have to do the job cab-on in my own garage, and I’ll have to knock out the back wall of my garage to fit the truck in. I’m really committing to a lot here, but I don’t see a way around it.
Since I’m going in for gaskets and studs, I figure I also will:
- Magnaflux and mill the heads. I don’t think I can afford o-ringing, but I will get a price on it. I also would like to sleeve the valves if I can afford it. If the heads are bad, the project might stop at that point because I’d really be getting into a lot more money at that point.
- Replace the oil cooler
- Test the oil pump – replace if needed. I’m not sure how you test it but will research.
- Delete the EGR (I don’t think it’s deleted yet. Most of the truck looks OEM except exhaust and a coolant filter)
- Rebuild the turbo
Maybe other things would make sense too; I’m open to suggestions. Considering my already large investment, there are some limits I’m up against; but I really don’t want to dig into the engine again to this extent.
I haven’t put over 100 miles on it since I got it. Codes it has now are:
- P0275 – Cyl 5 Contribution/Balance
- P0404 – EGR Control Circuit Range/Performance
- P0500 – Vehicle Speed Sensor (this is new – wasn’t there a day ago – might be from my testing)
During a testing run using a Bluetooth OBDC2 dongle and Torque Pro, I came up with few readings - not as much data as I would have liked to get, but I was having issues with the Bluetooth dongle. But here’s what I did get:
@
RPM
:764
@
Temp
:134F InJPW:1088 IPR:26.7% HPOP:915.4 ICP-V:1.2 FMP47.5
I made a video with good audio on it of the pre-start, cold start, idle, running at 2k RPM, and a warm(er) restart. I’d be interested in knowing what people familiar with the PS6 can glean out of hearing it but alas I can't post links yet. So I'll do that the future maybe or perhaps there's another way to post it.
If anyone would be so kind, please throw me your opinions. As I prep my garage, I’m trying to get together as much data as I can to efficiently do this.
Thanks,
-Jeff