Brad Clayton Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 6.0L High Pressure Oil Leaks This is a journey down a road I seldom travel. The vehicle involved in this story is a 2006 F-350 equipped with a 6.0 liter powerplant. The truck was towed to the shop. The truck would start and run, but for only a few minutes. I monitored the usual suspects with IDS and noticed that the IPR PID was at 85% after start up.A truck that will idle with an IPR reading of 85%, will exhibit a major oil leak and is usually within the injectors themselves. I have dealt with this in the past and replaced injectors with good success. Complete injector replacement is an expensive repair and not something that you want to guess as being the fix.The owner of this truck was on a shoe string budget and wanted the truck back with the minimal amount of work possible to get it running. I removed the valve covers and noticed it had 10mm hex plugs in the rail. The egr cooler had been deleted so I had easy access to the HPOP. I removed the oil pump and the STC fitting was worn completely out. While the pump was out, I took the opportunity to air test the system. I made this tool from an old STC fitting. I applied 100 psi to the system and air started leaking around the injector tops. Here’s where my problems started. In the past I would have jumped on the injectors and sold all 8. In the back of my mind I was never completely sure why/how/or if they were bad. This time around, I sold injector seals thinking this was the fix and I could save this guy a ton of money. I removed all the injectors and resealed them and the oil rails. I did notice, however, that the injector inlet orings did not look too bad (red flag). This was a bit of an annoyance and I pressed on. The truck was reassembled with a new STC fitting update and 12 mm rail plugs, actually all the orings on the rails were replaced. Last but not least, I did an oil change. Red flag number 2: The oil filter stayed in the housing. I had to pry it out with two pry bars and then the oil did not drain. I removed the oil with a suction gun and found about an inch of crud in the bottom of the housing. I scraped out as much as I could and then poured some fresh oil in. I got the drain valve working and buttoned it up. At this point it’s quite obvious that this engine has not been well cared for. Oh well onward ho, I started the truck and noticed the IPR was at 37%. Uuuhhmmmm. I secretly hoped this was due to air in the oil rails, but twas not the answer to my immediate question of “what the f@&k”??? The longer the engine ran the higher the percentage climbed, until it finally stalled. Now there was a great amount of denial as to what and why this was happening, followed by an equally greater amount of retesting. I spoke with Bruce on the issue and he urged me to re-air test through the ICP port. I knew this test was needed but just hated to go back there. I removed both valve covers and ran the engine and oil was exploding out of the injector tops. I re-air tested and had, you guessed it, air leaking at the injectors to oil rails junction. I realized I was not going to get anywhere with all these components in the chassis. So I made a test rig to check everything on the bench.I went to the hardware store and bought these items to build a rig to hold the injectors into the rail while applying air to it. The holes in this bar were reamed just a bit so the injectors would line up evenly. Making the plates.Lastly, it was all assembled and ready for use. This is a video of air being applied and the results, it’s impossible to read the gage at the end but it was a little over 40 psi. I removed the first injector and packed the exhaust ports with grease to verify the air was coming from the ports. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0EfcQ59lKo This is about the same video just not as clear and it has me narrating. I was concerned that the loud ass heater in the shop was going to cause issues with audio but it turned out that the air leak was more of a problem than anything. I had to subtitle that section so if you want to hear any of my boring comments make sure the “cc” button is on. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj4bEn5v8cY This video talks about the spool valve. I would have liked to mic’ed the valve and bore and compared it to a new injector but that didn’t happen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXzDqdx17xI Last video is just a re-air check after tinkering with the spool valve, again fire up the caption button. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QandyL9uuUI was able to score some perfectly good used injectors and I stuffed them in this engine. The engine ran like a champ or as good as could be expected. The real fix for this truck would be an engine due to the abuse and lack of maintenance. The customer was advised on this and is motoring around the state in the meantime. In other words he will run it ‘til it breaks again. I gained some valuable lessons from this experience, mainly not to overlook problems that are staring you right in the face. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Saunoras Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 Seriously you never cease to amaze me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad Clayton Posted January 28, 2014 Author Share Posted January 28, 2014 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DieselD Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 I have made it a habit to check the oil filter(and oil condition/level) on these 6.0s first and foremost anytime of drivability concern. It has bit me in the ass more then once. More then once I have pulled the filter and found the standtube melted to nothing due to a massive overheat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad Clayton Posted January 28, 2014 Author Share Posted January 28, 2014 Oh I have burned that idea into my brain, and will be checking that first from now on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Browning Posted January 28, 2014 Share Posted January 28, 2014 I can't wait to see the diagnostic aparatus Brad comes up with to check stand pipes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad Clayton Posted January 29, 2014 Author Share Posted January 29, 2014 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Saunoras Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 Kind of a related story. When I was in Buffalo our other guy diaged a 6.4 needing a set of turbos. So I get back and he gets to work installing them. Truck is done, he takes it for a ride, makes it about 5 miles and gets it towed back. No oil pressure. Back in the shop it became apparent very quickly this truck hadn't had an oil change in a while. We later find out it was about 50k miles! Needless to say it needs a motor and it roasted the new turbos already. It's still sitting outside, no idea who's paying for those turbos but I can take a guess Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 We had the exact thing at a dealer I worked at. Guy went like 50k no oil change, guy diagnosed turbos, replaced under warranty and then puked the motor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blown99 Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 Did you replace the oil rail nipples and the internal injector o-ring or just the internal injector o-ring and the standpipe/dummy plug seals? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad Clayton Posted February 5, 2014 Author Share Posted February 5, 2014 Oil rail nipple orings and inj. top orings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Browning Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 This was advertised here at the DTS through Google today... http://www.remanautoelectronics.com/product/60L-Oil-Rail-Ball-Tube-Kit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Saunoras Posted May 1, 2014 Share Posted May 1, 2014 Bostech is the ones making the new nipples I believe, and yes they are quite costly. I recently took apart and resealed an oil rail we had returned as a core. The guy who changed it insisted it was leaking, all I found were some hard O-rings but nothing deteriorated. I used the Alliant Power O-rings I got from Blown and resealed it. You can tell the new O-rings are a snug fit compared to the old hard ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forddieseldoctor Posted May 1, 2014 Share Posted May 1, 2014 You can see the nastyness on the bottom of the oil rail in the video. I've never seen one that looked that bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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