When do you guys condemn headgaskets?

Matt Saunoras · March 1, 2014

Besides the obvious purging coolant from the degas cap, excessive cooling system pressure, and air pockets getting trapped in the heater core. Now that I've got a wicked awesome pressure testing setup I've been playing around with it on nearly every 6.0 I get my hands on.

I've got an 06 F-450 that looks like a volcano went off under the hood. Lets just say after the initial repair there's no chance it could be an EGR cooler anymore. Serviced the oil cooler, installed an STC, cleaned the turbo and went for a ride with my gauge hooked up. The initial warm up drive of 5-6 miles resulted in 8psi of cooling system pressure and 185° ECT/EOTs. Got back to the shop, released the pressure and tightened the cap back up. Now I took it on a good long ride, over 30 miles, several good hard wot runs with no visible fluctuations other than a steadily rising needle as time and miles progressed. By the time I got back cooling system pressure had rose to 11psi and held there after I shut the veh off confirming no leaks anywhere.

11 psi, while not out of the limits of cooling system pressure, does sound excessive to me. Now that I am accurately measuring pressure I'm trying to get a feel for what is the normal range of a 6.0. I couldn't drive the truck any more without seriously wasting time but it doesn't look to me like the pressure would have leveled out and perhaps it would have kept climbing until it purged or caused some other leak. To me this would be an indication of a slight leaking head gasket. The fact that I released the initial warm up pressure, then the truck proceeded to make up all of that 8psi + more has me wondering.

Any input? Am I crazy? :crazy2:

Brad Clayton · March 2, 2014

I have seen pressures up to 15 psi on my gage and trucks would run fine.

From my experiences, a truck that could be on the bubble, needs to be driven with a pretty good load. Usually driving them empty will yield no results. We had a car trailer at the shop and I would load the shop truck on that and then tow it up a pretty good hill with the truck in question. Most owners usually fail to mention they had issues with their truck while towing a horse trailer and six horses, or 20,000lbs of hay on their Big-Tex gooseneck going through the Catskills.

Almost all the time the pressure will reach it's highest point while tipping out as if lifting the pedal a smidge to prevent over taking a slower moving car in front.

Aaron · March 2, 2014

Just to put you at rest, do it on a truck you just put head gaskets in. You won't get more than 2psi I bet.

Jim Warman · March 2, 2014

Matt, don't forget that "high" cooling system pressure is a symptom - not a problem. I often did what Brad does (it helps that we are a dealer in holiday trailers) to simulate real world conditions.

It becomes more important to ensure the cooling system is functioning as designed before we gloss over the reason for cooling system pressurization and zoom in on head gasket concerns. Cylinder sealing concerns are only one of many reasons we might see higher cooling system pressures than we "feel" appropriate. Anything that restricts airflow through the cooling stack (very important to look at the front of the RADIATOR) or reduces coolant flow through the engine can result in higher than expected pressures.

I don't recall seeing anyone post on the effects of running a too high AF/water ratio. I live in a very temperate climate - it warmed up to -11F this evening. If you experiment with straight (distilled) water and straight glycol, you will find that heat transfer characteristics vary greatly.

Consider this - one of the reasons we are called "stealerships" may just because we fix stuff that hasn't yet broken..... Think "while I'm in there I should replace yadda-yadda-yadda".

Matt Saunoras · March 2, 2014

Some of the radiator airflow is definitely restricted on this truck. It does have a large home-made steel cow catcher on the front. It basically encloses the whole lower half of vehicle. It does not run like it's heavy(just a flat bed and a fuel tank) but I'm sure the company does tow with it occasionally. I don't have any way of hooking up a trailer to this truck even though I have the luxury of a long steep grade a quarter mile from the shop

I always mix coolant at 50/50 around here and always with distilled water. It's around 22°F here right now. It was in the 40s yesterday when I was driving it.

Thanks for all of your input. I guess comparing trucks to each other needs to be done with some discretion. I wouldn't be surprised if this truck had an underlying headgasket problem, but the only thing I can do is tell the fleet company exactly what I found and let them make the decision. These guys are good about listening to me.

Steve Mutter · March 3, 2014

I had one that I was just doing coolers on and for some reason (I forget) I took the rad out and tried to flush it. I found that it barely flowed water yet the engine was not over heating during my road testing before the repair. Just like Jim talked about, coolant and air flow restrictions should be considered.

run6.0run · March 3, 2014

Hello guys,, I'm a newbie on here. I just got a new setup for degas pressure I thought I'd share with you all.

Hopefully photo bucket works on here

Posted Image

I have a good friend that is a machinist and he whipped this up. I like the quickness of it to install. It also double serves as a cap tester. I use a regulator with shop air to leak test with this also. Hopefully I can fit in with you guys here. This is a great resource that I'm very happy I found.

I hope the links work on here. Do YouTube links work here also??

Aaron · March 3, 2014

Yes they work and yes YouTube links work also.

Does your buddy have a drawing of the adapter or would he be interested in making more of them?

I'd take one for sure.

Brad Clayton · March 3, 2014

That is saweeeeet.

Bruce Amacker · March 3, 2014

Very cool. Tell him to apply for a patent before someone else does.........

Keith Browning · March 3, 2014

The ONLY problem with that set up is that you will not be able to detect leaks between the cap and the degas bottle. I personally have never come across that however so I doubt it's an issue. I prefer to approach these like testing for an evap leak... do not disturb the cap. None the less, nice set up.

run6.0run · March 4, 2014

Wow. Thx guys. Should I be getting emails when threads I'm on are replied to? I didn't get any emails today. Oh,, I just saw that box. Follow this topic? It's my first day. Lol.

I hear you on the "not disturbing the cap". That's a good point.

Matt Saunoras · March 19, 2014

Well the 11 psi truck is back, blew a y-pipe flex and I notice its puked a few more times since the last visit. They okay'd headgaskets and I'm going to check the rad and water pump too.

Matt Saunoras · March 20, 2014

So I found it, as I suspected headgaskets were changed pretty recently in this truck. What I didn't expect to see was aftermarket gaskets. The gaskets didn't look too bad except the small spot on the outside of #5 blown into a water jacket. Very small leak for sure.

I also found 18mm heads and the truck is a 2007. Obviously not the original heads, whoever did them put the commonized rocker boxes on the non-commonized heads. To do this you must remove the rocker box dowels. I don't condone this but what can I do? Everything seems to be okay with rocker box alignment otherwise.

It's also rare that I have a 20mm head and a 18 off at the same time. I snapped a pic to show the differences in rocker box bolt holes.

Steve Mutter · March 20, 2014

Do you know who made the aftermarket head gasket. Are they all black or do they look like the Ford head gaskets just in black

Steve Mutter · March 20, 2014

Nevermind just saw the pictures, for some reason they didn't load the first time I looked at the post

Matt Saunoras · March 21, 2014

The history of this truck is completely unknown. It was supposedly in Katrina and completely submerged at one point in time. The company picked it up at the auction last year and I've been working on it ever since. When I serviced the front axle u-joints last year the tubes were full of the reddest sand I've ever seen in my life.

mchan68 · March 21, 2014

Is that those "new" Victor Reinz "Black Diamond" head gaskets that supposely identical to OEM with the only difference being the sealing surfaces are obviously black, hence the name?

Matt Saunoras · March 21, 2014

Yes I believe they are the new black diamond gaskets. They look very similar to a 6.4 headgasket.

I think I'm going with incorrect installation on these. I could see several faint arrows drawn on the bolt heads and none of them were pointing in the same direction, it's very possible the heads were not torqued down correctly. I also had #2 and #6 injectors with early signs of copper washer failure which explains why I had to SPW #4 not that long ago. Not to mention 16 new pushrods installed upside down amongst other things

Steve Mutter · August 11, 2014

Matt did you get a chance to measure cooling system pressure after the repair? I know this is an old post, if you don't remember that's okay

Matt Saunoras · August 12, 2014

Nope I never even checked. I've worked on that truck a few times since then and it's no longer exhibiting any puking concerns. It is however still a rolling turd on wheels. It recently blew up the transfer case and wiped out the transmission case in the process.