6.0 L Diesel : spare parts

[daveb]

Originally Posted by schluchtenflitzer

Guys,
i think Claude-Alain will (like me) travel a lot outside of the US states. So think out of the square..
Your SAT phone and numbers to a dealer, fedex shipping times and so on will be not very usefull if you are stranded in Bolivia, Central Africa, Asia.


Didi

And why I said it depends on where you plan to travel. Perhaps Claude should re-phrase the title to 6.0 L Diesel: Spare parts for outside US travel. IMO our vans would be a poor choice in very remote regions unless Ford parts are common. What if you need an alternator, water pump or the transmission fails?

That would be a completely different list including tools again all depending where you plan to travel. Going through the Congo would require more parts to haul than a trip through Mexico.

At a minimum I'd say first off do a complete overhaul and bullet proof the engine. Besides the standard group of sensors, I would include any special fluids/filters not obtainable in the region. Bearings, ujoints and seals for the axles are things that might go bad. I'm just going on what has gone bad on my engine including brake vacuum pump, fuel regulator, and radiator.

[Pschitt]

Thanks to all for your serious and humorous answers!
Didi is right: I will be travelling where there isn't Ford dealer or shops. My van have all common 6.0L upgrades done. I know mechanics quite well since I did car racing for more than 15 years, developping and maintaining my race cars myself with much success. So I'm not affraid by maintaining the 6.0L diesel.
Of course, I will carry oil/diesel filters and other maintenance items. Just trying to indentify which parts can cause common issues...

Thanks!

[Ford_6L_E350]

The problems is:

The inability to troubleshoot and isolate problems without sophisticated, computerized test equipment.

I drove my van into Death Valley and parked at a campground. The next day it would not start. It turned over nicely, but would not fire. What would cause that? High pressure oil leak? FICM? ICP sensor? 5 minutes on the Ford computer showed it to be the EGR valve stuck open, but how to isolate that while on the road? If I had an EGR valve I could have changed it in a couple of hours, but I would have been throwing parts at it and hoping. How many other parts would I have changed before I changed the EGR valve?

AAA has towed my van to shops that can work on 6.0's, and the AAA card is my best part to carry.

Mike

[daveb]

You need a good trouble shooting program like Zeta has.

[SheepShagger]

Originally Posted by Ford_6L_E350

The problems is:

The inability to troubleshoot and isolate problems without sophisticated, computerized test equipment.

I drove my van into Death Valley and parked at a campground. The next day it would not start. It turned over nicely, but would not fire. What would cause that? High pressure oil leak? FICM? ICP sensor? 5 minutes on the Ford computer showed it to be the EGR valve stuck open, but how to isolate that while on the road? If I had an EGR valve I could have changed it in a couple of hours, but I would have been throwing parts at it and hoping. How many other parts would I have changed before I changed the EGR valve?

AAA has towed my van to shops that can work on 6.0's, and the AAA card is my best part to carry.

Mike

I think this is the most important thing, being able to diagnose the problem and decide on plan of action.
Scanguage with all the extra params/xguage programmed AND a knowledge of what they should be is a good start. Common items like FICM voltage and ICP will tell you a lot just while cranking on a non start. Other items like cam/crank sync won't give you a correct reading until engine is running on a scanguage. So knowing things like this is key to diagnosing the problem correctly.

If you have a scanguage, the below tread has a lot of info and (document to print and keep with your ford handbook in the van). It give you the normal readings for each censor.
http://www.powerstroke.org/forum/genera ... uge-3.html
But it does not state if scanguage can give you an accurate reading on crank. That's something you need to play & learn.
The below thread is also vital, worth learning the key items in it, there is also a word doc of it somewhere that may be worth printing out.
http://www.powerstroke.org/forum/6-0-re ... ition.html

Autoenginuity and a laptop is the other item that will give you a lot more info that scanguage, if you want to spend $$$.

Also, remember that with 2 full starter batteries, you don't get that many cranks before they are both dead, so a way to charge the starters from the house OR crank off the house batteries will help a lot.

In saying all that, the only ford 6.0 specific part I keep are O rings for the fuel filters, as I've had the O ring on the top filter fail on me more than once. You can carry all the spare parts you like, but if you can't diagnose the problem correctly it's completely worthless having them.

[scatter]

Has anyone found a good source for a decently priced FICM? Everything I find looks good until the core charge comes up on the payment page.