help finding disappearing antifreeze

seriousdiesel

seriousdiesel

New member
Joined
Jun 16, 2006
Messages
360
Ive got an 04 6.0 at my shop thats using antifreeze. Its using about 1/2 to 1 gal in about 40 miles. No white smoke, no mixing of oil and antifreeze, no visable external leaks, oil temp and coolant temp are withing few degrees. Held 20 psi pressure for 6 hours when i put the pressure tester on the radiator. I ordered the dye tester to check for combustion gasses in the coolant and will have it in a couple days. I am at a loss. Any suggestions? :bang
 
EGR cooler and/or blown head gaskets. My 6.0 is in the shop now for the second time in 15k miles for the exact same thing. It just uses coolant and gets hot every once in a while.
 
egr cooler fail. mine did the same dang thing. started pulling the manifold to go ahead and delete the cooler, and found where about 3 gallons had flown through to the intake...
 
bought the snap on co2 detector and showed no signs in coolant of a bolwn gasket ( blown into the cooland system anyway). Im ordering up a delete kit, thank you all for helping confirm my thoughts of it being an egr cooler.
 
Here's about the part where I learned about water washed cylinders. Your head gaskets are blown more than likely, and your head is lifting enough that its pushing water/coolant into the cylinders. At the consumption you're looking at, you are probably washing the cross hatching out of your cylinder walls. The moisture removes the oil and the rings drag on the walls filing the cross hatching away. FULL REBUILD TIME. Did it last February, it sucked.
 
Cobra 19 & 54 said:
Here's about the part where I learned about water washed cylinders. Your head gaskets are blown more than likely, and your head is lifting enough that its pushing water/coolant into the cylinders. At the consumption you're looking at, you are probably washing the cross hatching out of your cylinder walls. The moisture removes the oil and the rings drag on the walls filing the cross hatching away. FULL REBUILD TIME. Did it last February, it sucked.
Click to expand...

Damn.........
 
Cobra 19 & 54 said:
Here's about the part where I learned about water washed cylinders. Your head gaskets are blown more than likely, and your head is lifting enough that its pushing water/coolant into the cylinders. At the consumption you're looking at, you are probably washing the cross hatching out of your cylinder walls. The moisture removes the oil and the rings drag on the walls filing the cross hatching away. FULL REBUILD TIME. Did it last February, it sucked.
Click to expand...

Ill put some miles on this truck after I delete the egr cooler in hopes that isnt the case. Good to know that can happen though. The trucks owned by an older man, its a flatbed and only hauls a small load of wood pallets, not real heavy by any means. He doesnt rip on the truck, and the truck actualy only has 56000 mi on it so I am hoping atleast its not HG. But thanks again for sharing your troubles, helps all of us diagnose these problems.
 
seriousdiesel said:
Ill put some miles on this truck after I delete the egr cooler in hopes that isnt the case. Good to know that can happen though. The trucks owned by an older man, its a flatbed and only hauls a small load of wood pallets, not real heavy by any means. He doesnt rip on the truck, and the truck actualy only has 56000 mi on it so I am hoping atleast its not HG. But thanks again for sharing your troubles, helps all of us diagnose these problems.
Click to expand...

let us know how it goes! im curious about what he said too. hopefully you and i dont have blown gaskets! LOL
 
Mine did the same thing. Coolant would just vanish, used to add a full jug just about every 2-3 days.


Turns out my gaskets were blown for 20,000 miles. Just enough to eat the coolant but still pass compression tests and everything else Ford could or (should have, long story lol) throw at it.
 
Mine did that years ago...is was a small crack in the cooler internally. Only opened up to let anything pass when it warmed up and the crack expanded.
 
Just thought I would let everyone know that the problem was the EGR cooler. It was only leaking when hot, and was leaking only a little bit so it burned the antifreeze without making any smoke. On the plus side, the intake manifold was very clean. Fixed it up with a Liberator egr delete, and put in a new oil cooler while it was apart. Thanks for the opinoins and help.

Nathan
 
Last edited:
OK rather than starting my own thread I am hijacking this one. In the last 10,000 miles new egr cooler oil cooler, deguass bottle and fuel pressure regulator. Mine recently loosing coolant and it pukes when I tow pretty good. Stock tuning no tuner here. I was about a gallon low last month and am gonna go put another gallon in it tommorow. I noticed my fuel mileage dropping too. You think its the egr cooler again even though it was literally replaced like 10,000 miles ago. I have a a set of studs ready to go in. Thanks for the help


Forgot to mention when they did all the work to it they pressure tested it and said heads were good. This was prolly 6 months ago and 10,000 miles. Also new turbo(stock) was done but Iknow it has no bearing on my current condition but figured I just add that in there.
 
seriousdiesel said:
Just thought I would let everyone know that the problem was the EGR cooler. It was only leaking when hot, and was leaking only a little bit so it burned the antifreeze without making any smoke. On the plus side, the intake manifold was very clean. Fixed it up with a Liberator egr delete, and put in a new oil cooler while it was apart. Thanks for the opinoins and help.

Nathan
Click to expand...

I love it when I'm right....doesn't happen too often. LOL
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top