It's reasonably simple, just time consuming. You should take the time to pull the cooling pack and complete intake manifold to do it right. While you are there you will have good access to your main ground points as well as thermostat and all your belt pulleys.

 

For a 2003 ....

Some day I may finish my vid on this...

 

Thanks! That’s great. Seems pretty straight forward. From what I’ve read I’m a little confused about the removal/install process when it comes to the pump, wear ring, and bolts.

 

The seal wear ring is easy. Use a dull chisel and hammer around the ring in two or three places. This expands the ring so it slides off the crankshaft. The bigger issue is the front pump seal, as the factory tool is expensive.

Reusing the pump, mark the gear and ring so they are indexed going back in.

The donut between the front cover and the intake manifold is the big issue. DTR has you side it in with a putty knife, but then you have to hammer the gears in because the ring pushes down on the cover and offsets the cover on the dowels.

Don't do that. The intake manifold gaskets are reusable, so all you need to do is back off all the bolts, more at the front than the back, and remove the fuel line retaining bolt to give the manifold more compliance. Now, the cover fits on the dowels relaxed, gets bolted up, and the gears go back in without hammering them.

The downward shift of the front cover removes the clearance between the gears and the cover. You don't need that to happen.

 

I was going to use the DTR technique....Couldn't I install the pump gears after removing the putty knife and tightening the cover bolts? Is there a way to install the new front seal without dropping $200 on the install tool?

 

The ring will push the cover down, and you won't have clearance at the top of the pump. It will wear in, but that's not something I want on my truck. Do what you want to.

I'm not sure if this is an original tool or a copy.

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You might try installing the seal into the cover on the bench with a typical seal driver, then use bolts to bring the seal on the snout evenly. I'd oil the seal and snout well. I never tried it.

If it screws up, it's not that hard to replace the seal; you'll just need new balancer bolts again.

 

The ring will push the cover down, and you won't have clearance at the top of the pump. It will wear in, but that's not something I want on my truck. Do what you want to.

I'm not sure if this is an original tool or a copy.

You might try installing the seal into the cover on the bench with a typical seal driver, then use bolts to bring the seal on the snout evenly. I'd oil the seal and snout well. I never tried it.

If it screws up, it's not that hard to replace the seal; you'll just need new balancer bolts again.

Its worth the cost of the tool to do it correctly to me. I don't want to do it again. I will look at loosening the intake bolts also, again I only want to do it once.

Once more question....I drained the radiator. Do I need to pull the block drain plugs also before I remove the front cover?

 

You'll have some coolant spillage if you don't. I did not pull the drains, had coolant retained, and was worried I got some coolant into the oil pan as it came out. I drained my oil into a clean container, and there was no coolant that got into the pan. Maybe I was lucky, but I can't say for sure with only doing this once.

I'm still reconstructing my front cover video after my hard drive took bites out of it, so I can't show the work.

 

This is the last 5 minutes of my ~30-minute video about installing the front cover. The front has details, but more than half of it is blank (hurt hard drive). I substituted some stills for these last minutes where I lost the videos, but it should get you guys through. No narration, but you should be able to figure it out. It would take days to restore the entire video, maybe a week.

Yeah, there's a story in front of this. Sucks to be me. 4K viewed on YouTube.

 

This is the last 5 minutes of my ~30-minute video about installing the front cover. The front has details, but more than half of it is blank (hurt hard drive). I substituted some stills for these last minutes where I lost the videos, but it should get you guys through. No narration, but you should be able to figure it out. It would take days to restore the entire video, maybe a week.

Yeah, there's a story in front of this. Sucks to be me. 4K viewed on YouTube.

Good Video...but I have a question about it...at 2:53 you are installing a plate above the water pump galley, but it's gone in the final shot. What is that for?

 

If the snout has no wear ring, you don't have to remove it; it's as simple as that. The crank nose will have a ring worn into the surface without the ring (wear sleeve), but that's normal and why all new seals come with the wear ring. You can't buy any original diameter seals.

The oil pump gears, when brand new, don't have any indexing marks. But as a set wears from normal wear, it becomes essential to re-match the gears as they burnished in. So before pulling the gears, use some marker across the two surfaces to reassemble them back together.

You will need sealer for the parting lines, a new front cover gasket, an oil pump cover gasket, and the crankshaft seal. There's no way around that. The pump can be reused unless it shows severe damage from something going through it. And while the cover is off, the oil pressure regulator should be opened and checked for freedom of movement while you're there.

If you need parts, here's a collection I just copied off RockAuto. The Mahle kit comes with the oil pump cover seal, but I added it separately at the top if you needed to hunt. If you need a new set of gears, the kits come with the crank seal, a new cover, and a cover gasket. National is the OE supplier to International for the crankshaft seals on the VT365/6.0L.

 

Seems like that Mahle kit comes with everything I would need right? I did watch a video of DTR and he used some 3m spray adhesive and some silicone for the front cover gasket. Is there a specific kind to use? He also put something on the gears before putting them back in but I can remember what that was.
What do you mean sealer for the parting lines?

 

The Mahle kit have everything from what I see too.

Motorcraft TA-31 is the RTV specified for the parting line, to prevent a leak. For such a small area, something like ‘The Right Stuff’ should be fine. I used and noted TA-31 in the video.

I did not and would not be putting any spray on the gasket.

The gears should be packed with grease to more easily pull oil on the first rotations. I used assembly lube, also in the video but not noted as it was supposed to be shown in the earlier part of the video not included.

 

Last question I think…what are you putting on here?

 

Lubriplate 105 assembly lube. My version of grease to fill the teeth. It's also what I use when assembling engines; bearings, journals, cam lobes ......

 

Thanks, and good catch.

That final image is earlier. The plate supports the sensor(s) I have coming out of the oil cooler test port. Initially, I included my oil temperature sensor there to compare the aftermarket gauge to the standard EOT sensor to see if they tracked well. They did, so, in the end, I moved the oil temperature sensor down to the oil pan and only had the oil pressure sensor at that location.

 

One more thing....In your video it says the TTY stock bolts are 178lb ft. Everywhere I look it says 50lb ft plus an additional 90 degrees.

 

got the gasket off today. Don’t really see any specific spot of damage it could have came from. Wasn’t too difficult. Hardest part is removing everything to get get to it. I don’t know about everyone else but once I remove that last bolt from the front cover it dropped pretty quick. I caught it but it and gasket all fell about an inch. Hopefully I didn’t mess up the bed plate gasket.

question, what do you use to clean off the mating surface before installing the new gasket

 

>>once I remove that last bolt from the front cover it dropped pretty quick

Do you not have locating dowels in the block?

The bed plate gasket will be fine. The end nub is a sealing nub, easily replaced by the RTV would should be installing if it tears out.

These surfaces do not require the flatness spec that the head gaskets do. I use a carbide Goodson scraper, but a brass scraper is safer. I have no issues using a Scochbrite wheel on these, gingerly. You have to protect areas by sealing them off from the debris. A Scothchbrite-type wheel on a Dremmel might be easier than a grinder. You could also use a Scotchbrite hand pad or steel wool.

The surfaces in my image above were done with a Dremmel.

 

I do ha

Do you not have locating dowels in the block?

View attachment 801902

The bed plate gasket will be fine. The end nub is a sealing nub, easily replaced by the RTV would should be installing if it tears out.

View attachment 801903

ve

Do you not have locating dowels in the block?

View attachment 801902

The bed plate gasket will be fine. The end nub is a sealing nub, easily replaced by the RTV would should be installing if it tears out.

View attachment 801903

it does have those does. Not sure why it dropped like that but it caught me off guard for sure. That end nub seems to still be in good shape. It seems like it just pulled the silicone through the gasket and I was able to cut the old silicone away.

block it dirty though.

 

Well I got everything put back together. Took me about 6 hours total. Wasn’t too bad

I didn’t have a the tool for the wear ring so I tried putting it back on with the harmonic balancer…that didn’t work and ended up warping the ring. So I have another one ordered and just put the old seal without the ring back on.

went in there originally to fix a front cover gasket coolant leak that that seems to have done the trick. No leaks so far coolant or oil. Never did notice any specific damage on the gasket so not sure what led to the leak. That mahle kit came with 3 other orings I assumw for the oil pump water pump and t stat housing. None of the orings they gave fit though.

the Only mistake made was not tightening the lower rad hose when taking it on the test drive. Blew coolant everywhere and lost the clamp. Luckily www passing a parts store when it happened so got that taken care of

 

G

Finished disassembly this afternoon on mine. I was careful to cut the silicone on each side where the bed plate seam is. Now I just have to scotch brite the surfaces clean and reverse the process. LOL. Had to wait for the front seal install tool to come in and the batteries are dead in my torque wrench or I’d have it back on already.

 

Yep, everywhere you look.

In the section that you were looking at, I was using the ARP bolts, which are specified by ARP as 90 lb-ft with their lubricant. I did the 50lb-ft and 90º during the earlier segment, which was not included in the short video I made, so your guys had something to work with.

When I set my Snap-On torque wrench for the specified angle, it not only tells you when you get to the pre-set degree of movement, but also shows the torque it took to get there, the display flipping back and forth. All four factory bolts installed as per the service manual, new and dry, had a close average of 178 lb-ft.

In the shown part of the video, the narrative would be you could use the ARP bolts in-frame, so it's easier to install the bolts at almost half the torque. I've never seen anyone take the time to correlate the force it took to obtain the 90º rotation of those bolts.

But also, it's a guide if you are using the factory bolts and have crap for an angle-indicating adapter or none at all; you can use a torque wrench to get there, provided you are using new and dry bolts.

 

When I set my Snap-On torque wrench for the specified angle, it not only tells you when you get to the pre-set degree of movement, but also shows the torque it took to get there, the display flipping back and forth. All four factory bolts installed as per the service manual, new and dry, had a close average of 178 lb-ft.

That is WAY fancier than mine bubba!!!

 

It's way fancier than my other Snap-Ons, too. And way pricier. I bought it as this is one of its capabilities, and you don't have to do a full 90º in one motion; it holds the value of the just recent motion, then sums from that point unless you wait too long. It also counts how many times you've done the torque/angle from resetting the value and retains the previous 50 readings so you can go back and recheck all you've done.

But it's damn expensive. I bought it from someone I know who hadn't used it very much, so I got a good deal on it. Otherwise, I never would have paid the price, which has climbed even more today, post Covid.

 

I notice in your re-install video you put slicone on the block side of the gasket. DTR put silicone on both sides. Is there a need to put silicone on the cover side of the gasket? I'm at the point of installation, and definitely do not want to do it again.

 

The silicone is specified in both the Ford and International service manuals to address any surface lip (variation) between the mating surfaces, block, and bedplate, placed only on those two surfaces. There's no such lip on the cover side; it is continuous, so I can't see a reason why to do it. If a blob of silicone extends into the oil cavity toward the crankshaft, it always has the potential of coming loose and blocking the oil seal relief passage under the crankshaft. So, to me, it's a case of moderation when needed.

 

Thanks, and good catch.

That final image is earlier. The plate supports the sensor(s) I have coming out of the oil cooler test port. Initially, I included my oil temperature sensor there to compare the aftermarket gauge to the standard EOT sensor to see if they tracked well. They did, so, in the end, I moved the oil temperature sensor down to the oil pan and only had the oil pressure sensor at that location.

I just realized the Mahle kit has two oil pump gaskets. I just grabbed the black one and installed it, and the front seal. Then saw this one when I was getting the water pump gasket. Hope I used the correct one.

The silicone is specified in both the Ford and International service manuals to address any surface lip (variation) between the mating surfaces, block, and bedplate, placed only on those two surfaces. There's no such lip on the cover side; it is continuous, so I can't see a reason why to do it. If a blob of silicone extends into the oil cavity toward the crankshaft, it always has the potential of coming loose and blocking the oil seal relief passage under the crankshaft. So, to me, it's a case of moderation when needed.

i just realized the Mahle kit has two oil pump gaskets. I installed the black one then saw this when I went to get the water pump gasket. Hope I installed the right one. I installed front seal already.

 

I just found my old one and it was the black seal not this brown one.

 

The Ford kits come with three cord gaskets; I picked the one that fit.

 

Thank you for all your help and knowledge. I fired it up and ran it for about 30 seconds just to build oil pressure and check for leaks before putting everything back on the front. So far so good!

 

Glad to help where I can.

 

I have another issue.....LOLOLOLOL
While I'm under the front of the truck I figured I would change the transmission filter so I ordered a motorcraft filter, but I can't for the life of me get the housing loose. Its on so tight its is bending the bracket. Any tips or tricks? On my '06 I never had a problem with this filter.

 

An impact is your friend when it comes to that filter housing...

-jokester

 

Impact wrench with a good fitting socket to the hex. The bracket will become a pretzel any other way.

 

An impact is your friend when it comes to that filter housing...

-jokester

Impact wrench with a good fitting socket to the hex. The bracket will become a pretzel any other way.

Thanks! I would have been nervous to put an impact on it.....got it done.