Matt Saunoras

Man this thing totally had my head screwed up yesterday. As obvious at it is now I just couldn't put the pieces together.

They want tear down inspection and a cost cap. Not even a hint of who or why. My SM wants to talk to our service rep first. Since I backed the truck into my 18k I had to clear my boxes off the wall to get the truck back far enough to lift. It's up though and the ZF is ready to yank.

Looking at piston protrusion of .037" when spec is .0354". Also I didn't notice it before but almost all the pushrods in this engine are slightly tweaked. I couldn't see it until I rolled them across a flat surface. Something happened and I bet Ford tells me it's an over rev.

Looking at .005" crankshaft endplay. Well within spec. Had it moving good with a rolling head prybar in the starter hole and a regular one on a balancer bolt.

That is on the list of things to check. Right now i am looking at some questionable piston protrusion. Where is it checked at? 6 and 12? Already at 12 o'clock it is much more than the core 6.4 I have sitting here.

Interesting ideas Jim. I hadn't thought about lifters pumping up. Possibly related to the front seal pushing out? I've got some more brain storming to do but I'm very happy with the extra ideas so far. I will look into all of this tomorrow and maybe bounce some ideas off hotline too. The balancer looks new for some reason but I did not notice it being replaced in the spw history of this engine. The vibration it was producing did feel similar to a 4.0 SOHC with a balancer failure.

What should I expect to happen if I don't do anything about the pistons?

Any big job that gets nailed on the first try. Whether it be a shortblock, headgaskets or whatever when it leaves with no codes, not leaking fluids and there's no comeback in sight that makes me happy.

I definitely jumped the gun on this one. Problems starring me right in the face and I just over looked them. Not purposely but because I wasn't sure at what I was looking at aside from the obvious. I'm working on a 06 F-450 6.0 ZF6 that's spent a month outside our shop. The reason it's on the back burner is because it's not our baby. We didn't sell it, we didn't drop the 6007 in it, frankly we've never worked on it. I will work on anything that doesn't have spark plugs so naturally I grab it up. This truck almost 2 years to the day had a complete dropped in. In those 2 years it's had 2 sets of coolers and 3 front main seals. The tech notes for the most recent front main seal state that the seal keeps pushing out. One time it pushed out in less than a 100 miles. Red flag #1 that something weird is going on. On to my diag and what I overlooked. This truck just plain runs poor, no codes, makes good boost, isn't tooooo heavy to just runs like a dog. It idles rough when you first cold start it. Not like a injector misfire but weird, honestly like a balance shake (I have never felt any 6.0/6.4 idle like this). Power balance does not indicate a single cylinder is the source of the rough running. The line is smooth, not choppy but it doesn't idle flat. Several cylinders will be up and several down. Turning the compensator on and off did absolutely nothing (struck me as odd also) I wish I had a screen shot but it's too late now. #6 and #7 seem to be the lowest contributing at idle and when driving down the road they are dropped hard but not like a bucking misfire drop. I can't feel anything when driving it, just power balance looking goofy. I look the other way because it's a M/T. Thinking maybe that has something to do with it but now that I look back it just doesn't make sense. What I didn't realize until tonight is that #6 and #7 are pair cylinders on TDC at the same time, this makes me think that something is amiss with CKP/CMP sync.....but on to what I did find. The right headgasket is definitely blown. #3, #5, and #7 cylinders have all breached into a water jacket. The EGR cooler is fine but I am going to put an oil cooler(3rd one) in this thing for sure, EOT is a little too hot(could be from air but I can't chance it). The oil filter housing is cracked big time and has the whole underside of the engine soaked. I was hesitant to drive far but I had to verify the headgaskets were blown without a doubt. So for the hell of it tonight I took a peak at my front main seal. It is in fact pushed out about 3/32". This would be the 4th front main this truck has needed. Crankcase pressure was good, 4" of H2O at 3000 RPM. Red Flag #2. Every single damn piston has contacted at least 2 valves. On the right side it appears to be mostly intake valves, on the left side, mostly exhaust valves. This stopped me dead in my tracks when I saw this and I started thinking about every thing I over looked to this point. I have no idea what the driver did to this engine but it's not good. All my piston protrusions look fine, all my valves looks recessed about the same but I haven't slid a feeler gauge under them yet, I imagine they are in spec. Now I am sitting here wondering what besides an over-rev would cause valves to contact the pistons. I'm drawing a blank. Also wondering what am I going to do to fix this truck. Mind you these headgaskets were SPW until this point. If I ask Hotline for any kind of advice they're going to slap me across the head with a warranty cancellation. I don't know if anything I just typed made any sense. My brain is cooked and I need to bounce some ideas around.

I'll admit I haven't been installing the baffles. I have one to install if anyone ever wants it but I'm not seeing any out there and I'm in such a routine that I can't seem to remember. Not sure how much it helps, the ones I've seen on 08+ econolines seem to catch a lot of crap. I do clean intakes though and make sure to not let any cooler repair go without fully cleaning the bowl area. The EGR bore brush included in the 6.4 tool kit works well.

The BPD cooler is an option I offer some of my customers. I have ran into one truck that torched the EGR valve O-rings so be aware of that. It may not be a good option for trucks that are loaded heavy all the time. They definitely don't cool as efficiently but it helps keep the valve coking down also. Everything is a trade-off. When I decided to go the route I did my EGR valve was gooey and something was amiss. Whether it was incomplete combustion, poor fuel quality or a cooler starting to leak I'll never know. It wouldn't have lasted much longer without service.

yes the newer strategies do shut down EGR when ambient temps are cold. I don't know any specifics but I bet is was around the time 09-24-3 came out.

Rocking the red sticker here

Exactly! Get out there and get fleets in the door. I am surrounded by shitty dealers in this area, every one of my customers is tired of the other shops, we're not the selling dealer to any of them. It should be easy to get new business in but that would require my SM to do the impossible and free his ass from his chair.

That makes me want a regular cab short bed F250

I found out a long time ago if you want something done you have to do it yourself. There's a serious shortage of people giving a fuck around here and every where else.

66 glide my 2006 does the same thing with the factory calibration. Cold ambient temp = no P0401.

I bought a junk turbo off Craigslist for $50. Put that in the core box and kept the good one. I ran it on my truck for a while to make sure it was good then sold it for $300 I've flipped a few turbos now. The glass case turbo is on a f-550 and the one I just recently uploaded pics of got put on my truck today.

I did a 2 valve v10 F-350 in my buddies driveway, outside, no jack, no hoist. It had 11 broken studs and every one pulled out plain as day.

touché

Keith I had a fleet customer turn in a 03 6.0 turbo as a core with the rear bolt not only broken off but they tried to melt it out with a torch. Not only was it more than 2-3 threads below flush but it was a dirty glob of molten slag. I built that stud up and when I pulled it out the remaining bolt cleaned the threads up on the way out. The shop manager was pissed at his guys when he found out I saved that turbo.

I haven't drilled a bolt in 3 years

Hahaha. I once did a waiter heater core in a Taurus

First solenoid I ever saw do that I wound up letting the customer go because he was a waiter and I could not for the life of me figure it out. I ended up reading a post on here about it and called the guy the next day to tell him what would fix it......and it did.

There's a reason that ball blows out, it doesn't just fall out but it's caused by a reversal of pump flow some how. Mike had a link posted somewhere to another forum where a guy disassembled a swash pump and pointed out all it's shortcomings/downfalls. Looking for the link right now.