Tony302600 Posted August 20, 2007 Share Posted August 20, 2007 We guys im doing my first headgasket job on the ol 6.0. I will post pix. /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/drinkingdude.gif Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregH Posted August 20, 2007 Share Posted August 20, 2007 Ahhh, the loss of innocence. After this experience, you will never be the same. Each one's first time is different, but they are all to be treasured. It is a deeply moving encounter between a man and a machine, full of doubt, uncertainty, furtive movements, and awakening emotions. Today, Tony, you will become a man... At least you're not drunk in the back of a station wagon with shag carpet and Air Supply playing on the radio... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mchan68 Posted August 20, 2007 Share Posted August 20, 2007 How did you determine that the head gaskets need to be replaced? I've heard from NUMEROUS "reliable" sources that head gaskets are the number one most misdiagnosed problems on a 6.0L. If you have an overheating issue, either the EGR/oil cooler is puked and/or you have a cracked head(s) or cups failed. This is just what I've heard. Are you sure this isn't the case? Heads are NOT fun to remove on these things, so I wouldn't want to hear of you having to do the same job twice. Are you doing it with the body off? That's the ONLY way I would do it. I'm assuming this is an '04 model year since they seem to be the ones that have had the most issues with cooling system concerns. After doing TWO engines in a row this past two weeks, my back is still recovering. I feel for you!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DieselD Posted August 20, 2007 Share Posted August 20, 2007 heads are gravy, when your good you can get those suckers off in less than 2 hours if you bust your ass. pulling cabs are more of a hassle in my opinion Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad Clayton Posted August 20, 2007 Share Posted August 20, 2007 rockbronco (or is it rockyota yet?), I'm glad Ford is not consulting you on time studies! Just curious, are you removing the evap box when doing them in chassis? How many have you done to get them that dialed in? And last but not least how old are you? I never have hustled working under the flat rate system and the older I get the less hustle I seem to have, esp. when the parts seem to get heavier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony302600 Posted August 20, 2007 Author Share Posted August 20, 2007 Well gentlemen, this is all i got done today, got pulled off a good amount. Spent 2-3 hours with the aftermarket wiring and unwiring a control box for teh PTO in the back that was going to the cab. Rock, you need to inform me on how the hell you do this job in chasis. I dont know of anyone that does it in chasis. Especially torqueing those fluggin bolts down 90degrees 3 times in chasis. I think if it was a normal cab without all the wiring, i could get it up in 2 hours. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony302600 Posted August 20, 2007 Author Share Posted August 20, 2007 How did you determine that the head gaskets need to be replaced? I've heard from NUMEROUS "reliable" sources that head gaskets are the number one most misdiagnosed problems on a 6.0L. If you have an overheating issue, either the EGR/oil cooler is puked and/or you have a cracked head(s) or cups failed. This is just what I've heard. Are you sure this isn't the case? Heads are NOT fun to remove on these things, so I wouldn't want to hear of you having to do the same job twice. Are you doing it with the body off? That's the ONLY way I would do it. I'm assuming this is an '04 model year since they seem to be the ones that have had the most issues with cooling system concerns. After doing TWO engines in a row this past two weeks, my back is still recovering. I feel for you!!! I will never do a headgasket for overheating issues because i believe that they are not the cause. This actually had a external leak from the headgaskets. that is the only reason im doing them. I cleaned it off a million times and it started barely leaking out in the middle of the head. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iceman Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 well in chassis in my opinion is easy to do heads. But let me just warn ya 98% of the time the egr cooler is ruptured and the other 2% is a cracked head or warped. But anyway you can r and r the left and right head in chassis with out removing the intake or turbo or radiator basically just pulling the valve covers and pulling the heads apart yes i do remove the evap box but the driver side i don't remove anything i just get er done i also just use a half inch brake over bar and torque them there 3 rounds in chassis its tough but someone has to do it lol oh yea i am 22 and i love the hell out of these 6.0s they are gravy and sorry bout the punctuation lol life is too short for it haha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iceman Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 well in chassis in my opinion is easy to do heads. But let me just warn ya 98% of the time the egr cooler is ruptured and the other 2% is a cracked head or warped. But anyway you can r and r the left and right head in chassis with out removing the intake or turbo or radiator basically just pulling the valve covers and pulling the heads apart yes i do remove the evap box but the driver side i don't remove anything i just get er done i also just use a half inch brake over bar and torque them there 3 rounds in chassis its tough but someone has to do it lol oh yea i am 22 and i love the hell out of these 6.0s they are gravy and sorry bout the punctuation lol life is too short for it haha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Bruene Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 I do them in chassis as well. I do however remove the intake, evaporator box and such. It takes me a little more than a day to get it done completely. We have a 5 foot long 3/4 in. drive ratchet that will do all the head bolts except the rear left head lower bolt (which gets a johnson bar and a pipe)... makes for easy torquing. Now, a little off topic... I was chatting with some heavy truck techs when I was at Cat school, and they were telling me that the torque to yield main cap bolts on the larger Cummins engines are supposed to be tightened with an impact gun... according to the shop manual no less... I wonder if the 6.0 heads can have the final torque steps done that way??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DieselD Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 Yes I pull the evap case. I can have the right side down in a little over an hour including pulling the case, turbo, intake, etc. just get your tools out, turn on some loud music(I prefer metal) and get to work. I know every bolt, nut and the combo to get on them. makes stuff quick when all you do is pull apart 6.0s all day. going back together is a little more of a pain but coming apart is easy and quick. going together takes about a day to finish. Torquing is a bitch and yes it does suck in cab. I just sac up and pull away on the cheater bar. Its a work out and m back loves me by the time I'm done but its better than pulling the cab I think. I have seen guys use an impacts for torquing but dont recommend it. there is a procedure for a reason. oh and Im only 25 so that might have something to do with getting done a little quicker than you old guys /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/poke.gif Also I agree with making sure its the gaskets but just do the venting TSB and it will walk you through testing everything. We do alot of headgaskets in AZ with the heat. Ive had like 3 LCFS the past few weeks need gaskets too. Alot of times ou will only get an overheat or vent problem when the truck is loaded and running hard. I do do more EGR coolers and oil coolers than heads tho. Look real close at the gaskets when you get them off, you will see where they leak. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DieselD Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 I will never do a headgasket for overheating issues because i believe that they are not the cause. This actually had a external leak from the headgaskets. that is the only reason im doing them. I cleaned it off a million times and it started barely leaking out in the middle of the head. how so? I have seen several trucks with gasket problems have overheat concerns as well. Most recent was an LCF. It would get hot and vent coolant. Sure it would loose a little coolant but no more than 1half gallon. I could not verify it until it was loaded down and I drove the crap out of it. I checked everything including the water pump, radiator, t-stat, oil cooler and egr cooler. nothing was at fault. as a last resort I pulled the heads. the left head gasket took a dump and was leaking combustion right into a coolant passage. Every 6.0 I pull the heads off I find the spot in the gasket that it has been leaking. Its obvious. If its not I check the heads and end up finding a crack or whatever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Browning Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 Wow. We have some fans of cab on head gasket repairs. It must be a youth thing. /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/notworthy.gif I couldn't imagine doing heads or any major engine repairs with the cab around that engine. Torquing the heads MUST be a bitch! To each his own I suppose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OHNO60 Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 I HAVE TO AGREE TO A POINT. MY FIRST WAS A 2004 F450 TOWTRUCK THAT THE THERMOSTAT SEIZED CLOSED AND OVERHEATED THE BALLS OFF THE ENGINE. 2,000 MILES LATER IT WAS PUKING COOLANT FROM THE RESOVIOR AND THE UPPER HOSE WAS A FRIGGEN LOG. EVER SINCE THAT JOB I ALWAYS ROADTEST WITH THE PRESSURE TESTER AND BLOCK FLUID TESTER IN RESOVIOR. ALWAYS SEEMS TO HAVE DAMAGE TO THE GASKETS JUST IN DIFFERENT DEGREES DEPENDING ON THE LENGTH OF OVERHEAT. TAKE COMMAND OF EGR TO ZERO AND CRANK UP THE RPM TO 1200 WITH VGT TO 85 PERCENT, YOU'LL SEE THE BLOCK FLUID TESTER CHANGE COLOR FAST. BUT EVERY ONE, FOR GODS SAKE PULL THE CAB. WHO NEEDS ANOTHER CRY BABY ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SHOP TRYING TO PULL HEADS WITH THE CAB ON. HEY TONY, IS THAT A MOTEL NEXT DOOR TO YOU??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregH Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 The lastest round of head gasket I had was a bitch. Three in a row. Pulled the cabs on all three, had all three done in three days.... A little less than one day on each, top to bottom and back out. Cab off on all three of them. Cabs come off in an hour. If I start at 8am, then I'm cleaning heads and deck by 10. The torque sequence is done by 11:30, and the first engine start is at 3. Bite to eat, final testing with two road tests, and I pack up at 5:30. Final road test is the next morning at 7, and the paperwork is done by 8. Three days of that, and my back was talking to me! Had to run time for a week on those tickets... Like someone else said, turn on some loud music, sack up, and do it. Been there enough to where I only have to go to the tool box once to load my roll cart. I'm 36, and have done more head gasket jobs than I can count. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregH Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 Oh, and as for diagnostics... I followed the TSB a few times. Every single time I had to go back in and do head gaskets. The last one (a few onths ago) I though it was fixed with an EGR cooler and an oil cooler. The owner came back in a week with the same problems. So I'm back to doing the whole thing. I do not follow the TSB procedure and replace the EGR cooler, then reassemble and retest. I go in once, put all the new parts to it (oil cooler based on ECT/EOT correlation) and come back out once. My customers and I don't have time to be dicking around with "patch" repairs and comebacks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony302600 Posted August 22, 2007 Author Share Posted August 22, 2007 HEY TONY, IS THAT A MOTEL NEXT DOOR TO YOU??? Yes that is. A trashy one that makes our days awesome. So far we have had 4 FBI stings, plenty of cops crusing around in their. ALOT of interesting characters. I'm waiting to see it on an episode of cops. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DamageINC Posted August 22, 2007 Share Posted August 22, 2007 See, I get the guys who tow these bulldozers and Titanic-sized freighters with their lil' 6.0, and end up wiping out the EGR coolers and head gaskets that way. I am not exaggerating whatsoever, of all of the head gasket jobs I've done here (and I've done a few dozen, for sure) only 3 of them DID NOT require head replacement due to warpage. Usually it's clear as day, once you get the heads off, where the leak is at just by looking at the marks on the had and deck. Often times you can actually find carbon in the water jackets on the deck... That's where I take my first measurements and 9 times out of 10, it's warped out of spec. In more than a few cases, I didn't replace the EGR cooler because I felt it wasn't an issue and the heads fixed the problem by themselves, so I know I'm not just slamming gaskets in these things for problems that don't exist otherwise... Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Amacker Posted August 22, 2007 Share Posted August 22, 2007 See, I get the guys who tow these bulldozers and Titanic-sized freighters with their lil' 6.0, You ain't the only one. I've got a F550 6.0 grossing 42,000lbs pulling a triaxle trailer with a full size backhoe on it. He never runs light, and in 100K+ only a tranny on the repair list. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony302600 Posted August 22, 2007 Author Share Posted August 22, 2007 Keep you guys up to date..... Truck has been done for a day now but the boom is broken so its stuck in one of the bays until they (meade electrics mechanics) figure out whats wrong with it. And from the picture u can see the boom is sideways. It took 1.5 hours to move it into that position so they told me " oh yea, we're having a problem with the boom" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevin phillips Posted August 22, 2007 Share Posted August 22, 2007 i do all mine in chassis now not to hard i use a torque multiplier for the bolts but all are pretty easy to get except the drivers rear lower which you have to do with a pull bar takes me a little over a day but thats claning,and test driving but i'm old and slow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BustedKnucklez Posted September 11, 2007 Share Posted September 11, 2007 I've done heads with and without the cab on/off. If its a crew cab I'll leave the cab on, if its a supercab or reg cab, I'll lift the cab. I don't remove the evap box when cab on. I remove the passenger side motor mount nuts and jack up just the right side of the engine with a piece of 2x4 and the jack up against the right side of the bellhousing. That gives enough room to access the right side headbolts. Once the bottom 3 headbolts are loose I tie them up with a zip tie to not interfere with the block when I lift them out using the cherry picker. Sounds complicated, I know, but it works for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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