Hi all, greeting from Iceland. I tried to go through some hundreds of older posts but gave up, hence this post. A bit of a read but I am a bit lost in this case.

I recently acquired a F350 05 that only has 75k miles on it. According to previous owner it has regularly had oil and coolant change.

My problem is that is seems to be blowing air to the water and I need to add coolant to it regularly, about a gallon per 60 miles. Sometimes the water has spilled out from the degas cap, if opened, a little steam comes out at first, but I have also once seen coolant leaking (a lot) from somewhere in the motor and down to the ground.

Had it hooked up to reader at a workshop that specializes in Ford and got the info that the clutch sensor is bad, the EGR system is bad (has not been disabled) and possibly a blown head gasket.

There have never been any issues with the truck overheating, engine temp is always ok, oil pressure is always ok. Never been any black smoke coming from the exhaust nor any white one. Basically, the engine runs well and has good power. Diesel consumption is also normal.

Now… To fix the EGR is costly in Iceland but doable. Fixing a blown head gasket in Iceland is expensive and fixing both will cost as much as the value of the truck in Iceland. My worries are that if I fix the EGR system that might not be enough as the workshop stated the head gasket is possibly blown.

My questions are:

1. By the above description, is it likely that the head gasket is also blown?

2. How much more work (labor) is it to fix the Head Gasket vs the EGR system?

3. Does anyone have an idea of the approx. cost of fixing the EGS system and/or Blown Head Gasket in the States?

Hope someone has some answers so at least to steer me into the right decision... or if I should just leave the truck at the salvage yard

All the best from Iceland
Thanks,
Gudmundur

 

Welcome to the site..

Costs to R&R head gaskets usually exceeds the value of the trucks that vintage, here as well..

My first questions would be,, is there any soot or 'spotting' of black/coolant drops from the tail pipe, being depositing on to the lower bed pipe area? Its more common to see visual evidence of EGR cooler failure out the pipe as either white smoke, or spotting since coolant is 'introduced' into the combustion system. With head gasket fails (unless more severe) the cooling system is pressurized with cylinder combustion pressures well beyond its limits pushing coolant out the Degas and potentially taking the system to over temp conditions. With head gasket fails,, cylinder combustion pressures have to overcome head hold down tension (unless more severe gasket issues) and EGR cooler once cracked will leak continuously for the most part. All subject to degree of failure on both. You may even hear the vistronic fan cycling more often if the gasket/s leak aiding in heating the systems coolant.
So,, what is a common issue with the 6.0. is the Oil Cooler restricts with age/mileage (first in line for coolant flow), and being the EGR cooler (second in line) is fed system coolant through the Oil cooler, if restricted it can cause the EGR cooler to go over temp, sometimes cracking or failing the cooler. If the EGR cooler cracks, it will still over pressurize the system evident at the degas, but at much lower pressure than the head gasket/s. A cracked EGR cooler sometimes can be checked by removing the EGR valve and checking for wet/deposits of coolant left there.

Quite often, head gaskets will somewhat hold back pressures, until the truck starts making power, high boost, and the leak starts or worsens. A simple pressure test gauge installed into the degas line,, and driven normally to see if it holds normal system PSI, meaning within cap/limits, then driven hard monitoring the pressure for a spike can help determine failed HG's. Genrally EGR cooler leaks can not produce the high or extreme cooling system PSI within a gauge pressure test. You can also buy a block test/combustion test kit to check for exhaust gasses within coolant, or, to back up your findings if it were to fail a degas pressure gauge drive test..