Cracked Head? (Sick to my stomach...)

[nitroguy]

Guys, this sucks. I don't know if you've been following my attempted-diagnostic threads, but I think I'm in the deep end with no water wings. Would love your opinion before I call the junkyard dogs.

Took Hank (my '93 IDIT with 195k miles that I bought 2,000mi ago) to a mechanic. Diesel Mechanic A sold me the truck in Seattle, said he pulled the engine replaced head gaskets, and that I'm good to go.
Started smoking like a crazy son-of-a-gun, so took it to Mechanic B after my family move to Kalispell. B said probably cracked heads or bad headgasket. I've been losing coolant to the rate of 1.5 gallons every 200 miles with lots of oil in the coolant (but no coolant in the oil). He said drive it till it falls into oblivion, gave me 3 months for that to happen.
Didn't like that answer, so I took it to Mechanic C. Said my Oil Cooler is shot (by guessing). Pulled the "crossover tube" in the exhaust, saw that it was black and sooty so figured it could't be burning the coolant (but then where's it going?!). Showed him a pic of my truck smoking so bad, and he said "ooh yeah, cracked head". Quoted $7k for a rebuilt Jasper engine installed, and close to that to pull engine, diagnose, rebuilt heads, yada yada yada.

Look, I don't want to scrap this truck. I LOVE this truck. It smokes a lot, but other than that, I LOVE it. I want it to last. But I also don't have $7k to drop into a truck that's this old. I've got a baby, new job, and $7k on this truck 'aint happenin.

Any advice? What do I look for to confirm that it is indeed a cracked head that's making me sing the blues (that won't cost $5k just for diagnostics?)? Is there ANY chance AT ALL that it's NOT a cracked head?

Lastly, if all is lost, and I'm hosed, is there any bubble-gum-in-the-dam fix I can do to limp along for a year of commuting while I save my money?

Thanks guys!


And because all threads are useless without pictures, here is my beloved Hank:

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[79jasper]

Is this your only vehicle?

If not, just rebuilt the engine yourself. Not THAT much to it. Someone here could sell you some heads.

Also as was mentioned before, did you get around to any of the test we said to do?

 

[lotzagoodstuff]

I've been losing coolant to the rate of 1.5 gallons every 200 miles with lots of oil in the coolant (but no coolant in the oil).

If you really only have oil in the coolant and not coolant in the oil, I would vote for a bad oil cooler, only it doesn't explain where 1.5 gallons or coolant are going in a couple hundred miles. If your oil isn't contaminated, you should fix it asap. So...... you should stop driving it and fix it now.

My vote would be to:

A) do a compression check
B) get yourself another oil cooler or pull yours and inspect/oring it
C) be prepared to put head gaskets on it
D) all of the above
E) start looking for a donor engine

I would do these things in this order as they are the least expensive to the most, but none are going to break the bank. Worst case scenario: you've got the block worm, but that might show up in your compression test, and if you had a cracked/wormed block you'd most likely have lots of pressure in your coolant system.

Good luck, and don't scrap it: you've got lots of good insight here (lots of writeups on all of the above)

 

[nitroguy]

Cool Guys. With the lack of time, I haven't been able to run diagnostics myself, but I think I'll see what the mechanic charges for compression test. I think that'll tell a lot.

It's not the primary vehicle, but my wife's getting sick of dropping me off every morning. Maybe I'll just buy a disposable car for the next few winter months before I can thaw my fingers to work on it.

Thanks for the input! My stomach feels (less) sick!

 

[79jasper]

If you were closer, I could get you a set of heads cheap. But shipping from me to you would be ridiculous.

 

[racer30]

Get a rebuilt oil cooler and install that first. Your oil system is at a higher pressure than you cooling system so the oil gets into the coolant when engine is running and when you shut down the coolant seeps into the oil or not at levels you can see. On restart the coolant vaper is consumed by the engine through the cdr. I think a few calls to the wrecking yard might get you a doner cooler. Its cheeper than a new engine and if you rebuild a engine you will need a rebuilt cooler. To bad I already gave my exra truck oil cooler away....I would have sent it to you. Get on the horn and see if you can find one close to you. Good luck.

 

[GOOSE]

I have been in contact with a member, IDI guy, Ryan, he is a younger kid who bought a reman head off of me, had a shop check it out along with his other head, had machine work done and re installed them on his engine. He has since totalled his truck and is parting things out. I have his phone number and can call or text him any time. he had a brick nose F250 4x4, N/A with a ZF 5 speed. I know he is looking to re coup money out of his rig and would probably part out the heads.....

 

[idiabuse]

Oil analysis taken when the truck was purchased would of saved the RUN TO FAILURE movie episode that we a re reading now SMH

I doubt the head is cracked, I bet the mechanic did a lousy job installing head gaskets and skipped other maintanence necessities.

Hard to lay blame, the lousy mechanic or cheap prior owner? tough call!


Javier

 

[typ4]

I have been in contact with a member, IDI guy, Ryan, he is a younger kid who bought a reman head off of me, had a shop check it out along with his other head, had machine work done and re installed them on his engine. He has since totalled his truck and is parting things out. I have his phone number and can call or text him any time. he had a brick nose F250 4x4, N/A with a ZF 5 speed. I know he is looking to re coup money out of his rig and would probably part out the heads.....

If this is a known good runner he would be money ahead to buy it and pay shipping. And If I could charge and collect those kind of prices for working on these trucks I would open several shops.

 

[Rot Box]

Could this also be a symptom of cavitation? I hope that's not the case.

$7k wouldn't happen for me either. Knowing that I kept my eyes open for a clean low mile 6.9 just in case my 7.3 dies. Picked it up for $300 maybe you can do something similar if it came down to it. Best of luck oh and great looking truck

 

[idiabuse]

I stuck it out on mine when I killed it back in 07, got it all put back together for 2010 and killed again, now it is fresh for 2013

Long hard road for me, suffered piston failure both times running it hard and sucking the lower hose shut at speed.

Took alot of work to figure out the root cause of failure.

A stinking lower hose and my heavy foot cause me some setback. was it worth it? It runs fine now and it is paid for and I dont stop to fuel up at any filling station except my own.

Yea worth the wait.

I drove a 2003 6.0 for a bit and I like my trucks power better.

I know everything inside my engine is new and put together right, I am the only one who took it apart and assembled it and installed it.

Kinda nice to be on top of the insanity finally.

22/28mpg is nice too...


Javier

 

[idiabuse]

Could this also be a symptom of cavitation? I hope that's not the case.

$7k wouldn't happen for me either. Knowing that I kept my eyes open for a clean low mile 6.9 just in case my 7.3 dies. Picked it up for $300 maybe you can do something similar if it came down to it. Best of luck oh and great looking truck

All that work to put a mystery meat pie in the hole? I would never consider doing that, I must be old...



Javier

 

[firehawk]

Is this your only vehicle?

If not, just rebuilt the engine yourself. Not THAT much to it. Someone here could sell you some heads.

Also as was mentioned before, did you get around to any of the test we said to do?

If he does not have time to test it, I don't see him fixing it. Driving it while trying to save up money to fix it is just a bad idea. It will die and when it does, it will cost you more than what you have saved so far. There is not patch. Find the problem and fix that, or you will spend even more throwing parts at it.

 

[Silver Burner]

I stuck it out on mine when I killed it back in 07, got it all put back together for 2010 and killed again, now it is fresh for 2013

Long hard road for me, suffered piston failure both times running it hard and sucking the lower hose shut at speed.

Took alot of work to figure out the root cause of failure.

A stinking lower hose and my heavy foot cause me some setback. was it worth it? It runs fine now and it is paid for and I dont stop to fuel up at any filling station except my own.

Yea worth the wait.

I drove a 2003 6.0 for a bit and I like my trucks power better.

I know everything inside my engine is new and put together right, I am the only one who took it apart and assembled it and installed it.

Kinda nice to be on top of the insanity finally.

22/28mpg is nice too...


Javier

You can get 28 MPG with your truck? Even with a gear vendors that seems kinda ridiculous. That would mean you can go over a thousand miles on your 2 full tanks... Really??

 

[idiabuse]

You can get 28 MPG with your truck? Even with a gear vendors that seems kinda ridiculous. That would mean you can go over a thousand miles on your 2 full tanks... Really??

I dont even know how to deal with it. I just drive carefully so no insurance fraud cubans run into me or brake check me. Everytime something works out great some jerk just finds a way to put a wrench in the whole deal.

I get a solid 22mpg just tooling around at hom and on the hwy it starts to get alot better up to 28mpg so far.
I plan a 1500 mile trip next few weeks here so we shall see how much WMO I end up using.


Javier