HELP!!! 6.0 Powerstroke EGR/Oil cooler questions

[MTBLAZER89]

I know I know don't lynch me

I am currently deployed and GF's pickup (2004 F-250 6.0) crapped out. She had it taken to the local shop the family uses. Weak fuel pump is the culprit however, It has a few oil leaks and the shop is stating it's the oil cooler O rings and sending unit that are leaking. They recommend replacing the oil cooler since it get stripped down to do the O rings anyway.

My concern is the factory oil cooler is known crap design anyway, and it hurts my heart a little bit to spend $1000 on labor to replace a part that sucks to begin with.

Does anybody have any experience with these issues? I have been reading on the Bulletproof oil cooler and upgraded EGR cooler. These two pieces are major fixes to the 6.0 issues. Replacing the oil cooler and O rings with labor is about $1800 and that leaves the OEM EGR cooler. I could buy both the upgraded pieces for about the same price and do the work myself. The truck gets driven very little with me gone. I am considering just having the pump fixed so it's driveable, and telling her to minimize use until I get home and then tackle the rest myself.

The truck is paid off, not worth crap on a trade in so I am sorta unsure what to do. Lose lose situation with these things.

 

[Smokinthehippies]

I've had buddies use the bulletproof stuff with good experience. I definitly couldn't stomach paying to go back to stock.

 

[MTBLAZER89]

Well I have been watching Youtube and reading Powerstroke forums for the last 5 hours. It seems without going to an aftermarket external air/oil type cooler (about $1400) the only option is a stock design (oil/coolant). The aftermarket pieces (Sinister and BPD) are right around the same price $400 as the OEM and the popular consensus is the new design OEM cooler is the best option.

I had convinced myself earlier that doing the fuel pump and parking it until I got home was the best solution, but now I am second guessing that. It leaves her without a truck (mine are all put away or need something fixed LOL) through the winter, and it means that the first thing I have to do when I get home from deployment is spend days under the hood hopefully repairing this thing correctly myself. The second part of that definitely doesn't sound appealing to me at all.. Ugh..decisions!

 

[obijuank5]

Fix it stock with nice coolers and put the right coolant in it. then you won't have the coolant break down and clogging the oil cooler causing egr cooler failure as well. change coolant annually.
Do a coolant pressure test to make sure those head gaskets are ok.

 

[rjfguitar]

Why does the cooler need to be replaced? On the older 7.3, it also suffers from issues with the o rings leaking oil to the outside from the cooler. On both of my 7.3 trucks I just got an o ring kit and did them myself. I'm not up and up on the 6.0L issues to the detail, but a new o ring kit will likely fix the problem for a long time.

 

[obijuank5]

What happens generally speaking is the egr cooler boils the coolant causing it to break down and "sludge" up the oil cooler. now coolant can't pass through as well and can't cool the oil. self aggravating problems with the 6.0. new cooler because it's dumb to put a compromised component back on.

 

[MTBLAZER89]

Why does the cooler need to be replaced? On the older 7.3, it also suffers from issues with the o rings leaking oil to the outside from the cooler. On both of my 7.3 trucks I just got an o ring kit and did them myself. I'm not up and up on the 6.0L issues to the detail, but a new o ring kit will likely fix the problem for a long time.

It doesn't necessarily need to be replaced, but the $390 cooler isn't that big of a deal. It's more the recommendation that since he's going to break the top of the engine down that far you "might as well" while you're there. The truck has 180k on it and no real 6 liter issues to speak of. I replaced the FICM last year, but otherwise it's a solid stock truck.

 

[Truckman4life]

Buy a new oem oil cooler and do an egr cooler delete and you will be fine. Since you don't drive it much it is not worthy the money for the Bulletproof air to oil cooler upgrade. I work on a fleet of fords and ours all weigh 15,000-20,000 and they do just fine. Run good quality oil in it. If you are in a colder climate I would run 10w30 DIESEL oil. It helps a ton with cold starts. I would a coolant filter kit to it to keep junk out of the coolant since the oil cooler passages are tiny.

 

[MTBLAZER89]

I am not going to do a delete. This truck will get traded in or sold at some point, and from everything I've read the benefits don't outweigh the cost. I am unsure about replacing it or not. Obviously if I was home doing the work I would just do a BPD or Sinister cooler and call it a day, but this is a small town auto repair shop doing the work.

 

[Truckman4life]

Gotcha! I would have them do the bullet proof diesel semi-bullet proof kit if you can swing it, it's a bulletproof egr cooler and an OEM oil cooler and all the ford gaskets and seals. If you want to go cheaper than there is an oil cooler and egr cooler available from Dorman or another option is Alliant Power. I don't know the quality of those parts though so I always use OEM Ford parts cuz I get a good deal on them through work. On my personal '04 powerstroke I have my egr cooler plugged on both ends with freeze plugs and an OEM oil cooler and it works fine. I also did a home made crankcase vent reroute to get the oil vapors to not mix with the egr vapors in the intake cuz it makes a mess and causes issues.

 

[MTBLAZER89]

Gotcha! I would have them do the bullet proof diesel semi-bullet proof kit if you can swing it, it's a bulletproof egr cooler and an OEM oil cooler and all the ford gaskets and seals. If you want to go cheaper than there is an oil cooler and egr cooler available from Dorman or another option is Alliant Power. I don't know the quality of those parts though so I always use OEM Ford parts cuz I get a good deal on them through work. On my personal '04 powerstroke I have my egr cooler plugged on both ends with freeze plugs and an OEM oil cooler and it works fine. I also did a home made crankcase vent reroute to get the oil vapors to not mix with the egr vapors in the intake cuz it makes a mess and causes issues.

Yeah I definitely would if I was there doing the work, but I think we're just gonna go with the OEM oil cooler. I spoke with the shop via text this morning and he is gonna let me know how the EGR cooler looks when he gets there so we can make a decision.

I definitely didn't read or see anything good on the Dorman stuff in my research.