Keith Browning Posted January 14, 2010 Share Posted January 14, 2010 An old customer who had strayed, tried another dealer and was not happy there ended up at the dealer that just closed. Both had either not found the problem with this 2004 Econoline 6.0L that is blowing coolant from the degas bottle and lacks heat. Long story short the truck has a new EGR/Oil cooler and thermostat as of six months ago. Since the last dealer that missed it is now closed, it is back home, and in my damn service bay. AT IDLE the coolant will slowly bubble up and flow out of the bottle, a little at a time. Rev it up and the coolant aerates. I checked for CO2 with my sniffer and detected nothing. Even so, I proceeded to test the EGR cooler as not to skip over it. I have no leak down with the Radkitplus but my temperature spread EOT/ECT is 26 degrees AT IDLE. (air pocket I presume) I proceeded to inspect the water pump and the thermostat... just to be sure I don't miss anything and discovered the t-stat not fully closing. I replaced it but that had no affect on the condition. Still with me? Sounds like a crack in the engine or head gaskets but who has ever heard of head gaskets on one of these leaking AT IDLE? At this point I am sure it has to be base engine related but why no CO2? It runs fine and is not burning coolant either. I thought about this and decided to recheck for CO2 but this time I had someone power brake it and after squeezing the bulb on the tester for about 20 seconds my tester fluid turned from blue to green indicating CO2... on most instances it still turns yellow but green is a positive result for diesels. The truck is out of warranty so now I wait for the go ahead to pull the engine. Fuck me! I am already behind the clock. Weird or what? I am curious as to what I am going to find here! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DamageINC Posted January 14, 2010 Share Posted January 14, 2010 I had an econoline Ambulance that SEVERELY overheated (coolant temp with my infrared gun was close to 400 degrees F after 20 minutes of cooling down) but the standpipe was ok in the filter housing still.. overheat cause was because of a bad fan clutch. However the vehicle did need heads and head gaskets (and it ended up getting a long-block due to metal transfer on the cylinder walls) as a result of insane warping and it would pressurize the cooling system any time it was running. Simple blips of the throttle wold push cooling system pressures well into the 20s and the poor cap sounded like someone pulling the valve core out of a truck tire. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregKneupper Posted January 14, 2010 Share Posted January 14, 2010 I have seen blown headgaskets cause bubbles up through the degas bottle at idle. I currently have a f250 in my bay right now that will pop the cap just idling with a cold engine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron Posted January 15, 2010 Share Posted January 15, 2010 I worked on one last week that would blow coolant out of the bottle while cranking, once you could get it to crank. It had been completely brutalized under the hood by another dealer also, but that's beside the point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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