6.0L Oil and EGR cooler replacement in the shade of a tree

[BogusBlake]

All back together, wet, and running!

It cranked longer than I expected before firing up, but it eventually did. I think it took a while for all the new oil to get up and actuate the injectors. That makes sense since I had so much stuff out.

Filled the cooling system with distilled water- it took 5 gal. So that means even after draining the Rad and the block, there's still almost 2 gal hiding somewhere. We'll see what it looks like when it comes out.

I drove for an hour on the highway (with the heat on) to make sure everything got up to temp and circulated. On flat road, at 65mph, water temp stuck at 200 and oil temp stayed at 204. There's one hill on my test route that I can hit at WOT for about a minute. Water temp got up to 211 but immediately crashed back down to 195 when I let off the throttle at the top. Oil temp went up to 208 then back to 204 pretty quickly.
So, in general, I'm still running a little hot, but that's another topic.

All the filters are warm, and nothing is dripping. So that's good.

No codes, no new smells, no new noises. Well, maybe a new noise or I just didn't notice it before: a few seconds after I shut off the engine, I can barely hear something spinning and slowing down, and a whooshing sound. Probably the turbo. Maybe it's getting better oil now? It could be that I haven't really ever been listing carefully to the engine with the windows down.

Anyway, proceeding with the coolant flush and refill.

[BroncoHauler]

Hats off to you. I wish I had the courage and skills to take on a project like that. It's also great that you took the time to document you efforts and share them here.


Herb

[Ford_6L_E350]

Congratulations!

Shoot, I'm happy when everything is right after I paid someone to work on it. Must be a great feeling to have done it yourself.

Mike

[BogusBlake]

Thanks guys! Besides not paying someone else to do the work, I feel like I actually came out ahead with how much I learned about the engine in the process.

Second drive, this time with Restore in the system: Temps stayed around 195 an 200 this time. WOT hill only got to 205 for both temps. It was a little cooler and raining this time.

[BogusBlake]

Flushing the coolant is done, and it took a lot longer than I anticipated.
The Fleetguard Restore bottle says to put it in, run it for an hour, then drain, refill with distilled water, run 5 min at op-temp then drain, then refill with coolant.

Well, I couldn't believe the globs and chunks that were coming out on the first drain, so I filled, ran, and drained three more times. Finally, on the 4th time, the runoff was clear and the PH was back under 8 (still not neutral, but I'd poured out a lot of water already...).

New EC-1 coolant is in and everything seems to run great. Call this job done!

[jwintersteller]

Great write-up, thanks for taking the time to document your journey and congrats on you success.
I've often thought about doing this myself when my time comes. Still not sure if I will take it on but now I'm more enthusiastic about it.
What was the total hours you put into it?

Cheers,
John

[daveb]

I wish you were my neighbor.

[BogusBlake]

Originally Posted by jwintersteller

What was the total hours you put into it?

Cheers,
John

Including the coolant flush, 30 hours of active work. I spent probably another 4 on reading, research, and shopping.

[jwintersteller]

Originally Posted by BogusBlake

Including the coolant flush, 30 hours of active work. I spent probably another 4 on reading, research, and shopping.

That doesn't sound bad at all. Even including the 4 hours of r, r and s, 34 hours to take that on for the first time seems very reasonable to me.

Thanks again for the posting it all.

[PatO]

Yes; very informative and glad it all worked out. I'm still collecting estimates for exactly the same work.
Pat