Another head gasket question.

Ok. Little back story. So when I bought my truck about year and a 1/2 ago it had just been studded and deleted. Had set of new ford oem heads and oem gaskets put on, blue fuel spring 6.4 banjo bolts oil cooler all new injectors warren 190cc stock nozzles new glow plugs as well as a few other things done. About a month later an injector went bad and I had it replaced after trying rev x While there I asked them if they had a way to test head gaskets, he said no true way to "test" for sure but would check it out. He said he did a leak test on it. (Cooling system i assume) and in 3 days it dropped less than 1/2 pound. All was well. Drove it on a 2300 mile trip no issues. So over next few months Slowly was noticing deltas getting high so tried the coolant re-route trick to get a little more time out of my cooler. After I did the coolant re-route where you come out of oil cooler housing with a 3/4 hose and "T" it into heater hose under degas bottle I noticed my truck would spit coolant out cap. So put a gage on my bottle and it would only go to 10-15 lbs after normal driving. I replaced cooler and trucks temps were all good now. ECT 185-190 and EOT at 187-192 around town. Highway at 75mph might hit ECT of 195-198 EOT of 197-200. But would still spit coolant. When jumping on it and Would smell coolant. Then I would pull over and gage on bottle would still be at 10-15psi. I found that keeping just barely enough coolant in bottom of degas bottle vs 1/3 full it wouldn't do it as bad. And this all started after the coolant re-route. So the other day it spit out coolant again after getting on it to pass someone check gage and it's running like 15-16lbs. So I decide to run a hose inside truck and put gage where I can watch it. Running down hiway at 70mph ECT @ 178 EOT @ 180 lay into it steadily and boost up to 25psi and I see gage go from 16 to about 18 then it fluttered there a bit and I left off dropped right back to 15psi I smelled antifreeze so pulled over. It spit a little bit so I removed cap on degas bottle to relieve all pressure. Pulled out went down hiway about 3-4 miles and pressure had climbed up to about 6lbs again so I am a little pissy thinking I got a head gasket issue so I jump on it at about 70 it kicks down into passing gear and hits about 25psi boost and I watch gage go from 6lbs to 8.5-9lbs. Now I'm running an edge cts tuner on top tune. Checked ECT it was at 185 and EOT at 188. I would think if it's a head gasket issue it would jump up more than 2.5-3 lbs with hardly any pressure in degas bottle and I would get way hotter ECT than a 4deg climb. Wondering if anyone else who has done coolant re-route is experiencing same issues and that's the culprit or it's head gaskets. And another thing is it doesn't blow any white or bluish smoke. Just a little bit of black smoke when doing this.

Sounds like a weak cap, 15 psi is normal if i remember right.

I'd replace the cap with a ford one to start with. But the fact that it's getting up to 25 psi under wot, sounds like headgasket

webb06 said:

I'd replace the cap with a ford one to start with. But the fact that it's getting up to 25 psi under wot, sounds like headgasket

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this

Thanks for all the replies guys. This is driving me crazy. I convinced my self it was head gaskets. Then I did the test where I dropped off all pressure in degas bottle and at WOT it only raised up 2.5-3lbs. The other thing is fuel milage isn't that bad either. Truck is lifted 6" with 37" tires and around town driving its getting 13-15mpg and hiway it's pulling anywhere from 16-18mpg.

Buellstunter said:

Thanks for all the replies guys. This is driving me crazy. I convinced my self it was head gaskets. Then I did the test where I dropped off all pressure in degas bottle and at WOT it only raised up 2.5-3lbs. The other thing is fuel milage isn't that bad either. Truck is lifted 6" with 37" tires and around town driving its getting 13-15mpg and hiway it's pulling anywhere from 16-18mpg.

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Make sure you have the new Ford cap with the bigger spring in it. They're all black with no sticker on the top, just info printed on the plastic. Before you did the oil cooler how hot did it get?

I went through something similar.

Quit wasting your time and go find yourself a 5 gas analyzer put the sniffer in the jug and check the carbon monoxide level. That is the ONLY sure way to know. If your egr is deleted and you're getting carbon monoxide in the jug your gaskets are gone. I screwed around with the blue dye block test crap for weeks and the truck passed every single test. The 5 gas analyzer lit up like a Christmas tree when I put it near the jug.

Try the new cap it should not get above 15psi so that leads me to think headgasket is starting to leak if you are at 18psi. Honestly it would not surprise me if this is the truck I think it is. Is this Rusty's old truck?

The cooling system at no time should make more then 16psi. I hate to say it but it's more then likely head gaskets bud. After you release all the pressure from the system it really shouldn't rise at all. Coolant pressure should be directly related to coolant temp not boost or rpm. If it rises at all from a wot pass(after warmed up) you have a head gasket leak.


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Yeah, sickens me to believe it, but im thinking head gaskets are going again. Sucks cause it doesn't have 30,000 miles since it was done. I think I already have the newer cap. it's all black with printed yellow writing on top so don't think
Its worth it to try that. It hasn't been above ECT 245 degrees and EOT 260 since I've owned it. The day that happened I back flushed oil cooler and never was close to that again. I've spent a ton of time and money to get this truck back to dependable and nice. Would figure this would happen now. Lost my job of 18 years at the end of sept. And don't have extra loot laying around. I sold my daily driver truck to keep this one.

04stroker said:

Try the new cap it should not get above 15psi so that leads me to think headgasket is starting to leak if you are at 18psi. Honestly it would not surprise me if this is the truck I think it is. Is this Rusty's old truck?

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yep! This is Rustys old truck. Worked my ass off to get all the stuff fixed on this truck. Why doesn't it surprise you?

Mine only made it 10k after I had them done.

Buellstunter said:

Yeah, sickens me to believe it, but im thinking head gaskets are going again. Sucks cause it doesn't have 30,000 miles since it was done. I think I already have the newer cap. it's all black with printed yellow writing on top so don't think
Its worth it to try that. It hasn't been above ECT 245 degrees and EOT 260 since I've owned it. The day that happened I back flushed oil cooler and never was close to that again. I've spent a ton of time and money to get this truck back to dependable and nice. Would figure this would happen now. Lost my job of 18 years at the end of sept. And don't have extra loot laying around. I sold my daily driver truck to keep this one.





yep! This is Rustys old truck. Worked my ass off to get all the stuff fixed on this truck. Why doesn't it surprise you?

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Because I did the studs and all and that truck was a total mess. The cooling system was one of the nastiest I had ever seen I flushed several times and told him to continue flushing it. But as far as the head gaskets not surprising me the block surface was not in good shape at all and needed to be surfaced. I tried to get him to let us surface the block but he said he did not want to spend the extra money.

04stroker said:

Because I did the studs and all and that truck was a total mess. The cooling system was one of the nastiest I had ever seen I flushed several times and told him to continue flushing it. But as far as the head gaskets not surprising me the block surface was not in good shape at all and needed to be surfaced. I tried to get him to let us surface the block but he said he did not want to spend the extra money.

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I see. Ive flushed this cooling system no less than 10 times since I put on the coolant filter. Last filter if cut open had hardly any casting sand or other crap. Now I've read and heard that the blocks don't have the tolerance to resurface. So is that true? If so does that mean id be better off putting in another motor?

You can surface the blocks just have to make up the tolerances with other machining of pistons, heads etc...

Sounds like it be cheaper to put another bottom end in it than go through all that work.

Buellstunter said:

Sounds like it be cheaper to put another bottom end in it than go through all that work.

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Yeah put a fresh short block in it.

Or just have that one re done. Rod bearings, main bearings, lifters.....

Which is best way to go though? short block or repair old block. Truck has 230,000 miles on it.

Shortblock. The cost alone in machine work and reassembly wouldn't be worth it

Buellstunter said:

Which is best way to go though? short block or repair old block. Truck has 230,000 miles on it.

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Depends on who does the work. I think a low mileage short block is your best bet though. My engine at 225k had a some wear. I think it would've made it to 300k but not much more.

Buellstunter said:

Which is best way to go though? short block or repair old block. Truck has 230,000 miles on it.

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Short block it. Since there's no thicker head gaskets on the market you're stuck with tons of machining to make it work. Cheaper to let Ford deal with it.