Blown head gaskets or cracked EGR coolers?

Powerstroke Man 6.4 · May 13, 2016

Truck is a Job 2 109,000 miles.

Still has the factory coolers and EGR valve.

It's tuned and del-eted with spar_tan tunes.

it has excessive pressure out of the degas bottle, sometimes it will puke.

(It has the new updated style cap it's around 2 years old.)

Over the last 2 or so years, I noticed on certain starts every once and a great while, it would blow a puff of white smoke out of the exhaust and clear up.

EOT/ECT is within 4-7 degrees of each other (usually 198/203.)

What you guys think?

Thanks in advance.

sootie · May 13, 2016

cracked egr cooler, or head gaskets starting to go.

cbenn47 · May 13, 2016

PM me if your going to go with new EGR coolers, I have a set of Bullet Proof EGR coolrs with less then 6000 miles on them bought them new for as just in case Washington state went with yearly inspections, they dropped the thought so did a complete EGR removal.
I blew my head gaskets with S part an 250 as a daily driving tune.

6.4f350 · May 13, 2016

If it's not studded I would put money on headgaskets.

Dzchey21 · May 13, 2016

It really could go either way, I would think a cracked cooler would make it drink coolant all the time.

Powerstroke Man 6.4 · May 13, 2016

Ok thanks for the input guys.

What would cause the upper radiator hose to collapse and when the cap it's taken off the degas bottle it reforms?

Sounds like the cap is bad?

Dzchey21 · May 13, 2016

The cap is not really made to vent a vacuum from the system. So really there isn't much that you can do there.

6.4 Stroker · May 13, 2016

Have you actually had to add coolant to it?
Fuel and be white too.

webb06 · May 13, 2016

I'd pull the intake horn off and see if it's wet inside the intake.

From my experience id guess headgaskets if it's puking under hard load.

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wackyman9 · May 13, 2016

If its the egr coolers, wouldn't you be able to get coolant out of them if you cracked the cooler flanges on the exhaust gas side? Could that verify that it would be the coolers?

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Pan4905 · May 13, 2016

wackyman9 said:
If its the egr coolers, wouldn't you be able to get coolant out of them if you cracked the cooler flanges on the exhaust gas side? Could that verify that it would be the coolers?

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Mine were wet inside. Brought the truck in for a head stud job because it was blowing coolant. Assumed it was head gaskets. Still had the egr coolers on the truck and it ended up being the coolers ruptured and would pressurize the cooling system only under a hard load. Head gaskets were fine. Ended up doing everything anyway just to get it over with.

wackyman9 · May 13, 2016

I would hope for coolers over heads.... Easier to diagnose and fix, especially if you can catch it quick enough..

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Powerstroke Man 6.4 · May 14, 2016

6.4 Stroker said:
Have you actually had to add coolant to it?
Fuel and be white too.

Over the past 6 months ill say around 1/2 a gallon.

TjMiller · May 15, 2016

What tune you run? Cooler block offs are cheap, you already have the valve disabled right? Wouldnt you want to do that right away? I know at 100,001 miles I felt like I was on borrowed time. If you took them off could pressurize them.

03cody · May 16, 2016

I'd put my money on gaskets. I say this because I just went through the same thing. I bought the truck and ******d it right away........needless to say it didn't fix my problem. Mine would get down to a certain level and stay there but it had pressure in the degas bottle all the time and puke if filled. If it is puking.....its probably gaskets.

f350guy · May 17, 2016

I have a Job 2, '09 build truck I bought new. May of '09 actually.

In any event, I have had it straight piped since 9000 miles with a mild 'street' tune (~475hp area) from one of the big tuners up in the Northeast. I lost my horizontal EGR cooler around 65k if I recall correctly, I can check my records if you need to know exact mileage it failed.

I had blockoff plates on the truck at the time and I found out the cooler failed as it was leaking from the upper block off plate at the intake manifold elbow. They are easy enough to blockoff for testing reasons.

Of course, there could be coolant in the oil with a failed HG. Analyzed oil would tell this also.

Start with the easy stuff, go from there.