Help Answer - Buyer's Guide - Bullet Proof Diesel

Indications of a Failed EGR Cooler

While each make or model varies, there are three indications of a failed EGR cooler

Indication #1 of a Failed EGR Cooler

The unexplained loss of coolant from your degas (overflow) bottle or cooling system. This can easily be explained when you have a bad EGR cooler - the EGR cooler is simply leaking the coolant back into the exhaust system, not outside of the engine. Most people make an expensive mistake of ignoring this warning sign. They assume that since they can not find or see the leak, it must not actually be a leak. The longer they ignore it, the more coolant that leaks out of the engine and quickly creates warning sign #2.

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Indication #2 of a Failed EGR Cooler

All that white smoke coming out of the tailpipe is actually steam. As the coolant is dumped into the exhaust system, it quickly vaporizes and turns from liquid to steam and comes out of the exhaust.

Indication #3 of a Failed EGR Cooler

That "puking" of coolant out of your degas bottle is actually not a sign, necessarily, of a bad EGR cooler. On a Ford 6.0L it is more likely a sign that your engine oil cooler is plugged and is restricting the flow of coolant getting to your EGR cooler. (Click here for more information about this) The EGR cooler is not getting enough coolant flowing through, so the coolant that is inside it quickly begins to boil. When the coolant boils, it creates high-pressure steam pockets which billow out through your degas bottle, pushing and forcing coolant out of the lid. The EGR cooler should be replaced in this instance because its already been overheated and stressed - and very likely to fail in the near future.

So how do you diagnose a bad EGR cooler?

If your EGR cooler is 'upstream' of your EGR valve, then there is a simple way to confirm if you have a leaking or failed EGR cooler. This method is easy to do and is a good "test" if you have any of the three symptoms above. To do this test, turn off your rig. When it is cooled down, remove the EGR valve and inspect inside with a flash light. If it looks wet, gooey or steam-cleaned, then you probably have a failed EGR cooler.

What to do if you have a failed EGR Cooler?

Besides doing nothing, you really only have two choices - buy another OEM EGR cooler like the one you are cursing at now, or step up your game and buy a BulletProof Diesel EGR cooler. Our EGR coolers are made with one overriding goal: reliability. We guarantee that our EGR coolers will fit, function and last so long that you will forget all about it! That's what you really want, after all - a part so well made you never worry about it again.

Tech Tips for Installation of the Bullet Proof Diesel EGR Cooler Upgrade

1. Tech Tip #1: Use silicon sealer on the intake to EGR cooler flange gasket. This helps prevent small exhaust leaks.
2. Tech Tip #2: Turbo charger mounting bolts should not be re-used. Almost every 6.0L we have replaced the EGR cooler on came in missing one or more of these bolts. If this is the case for you as well, make sure to check the threads in the turbo charger and pedestal mount. Use new bolts when re-installing the turbo charger and torque to factory specifications. If the bolts come loose, the turbo charger will vibrate on the turbo charger pedestal mount. This could cause a noise that resonates in the exhaust system and damage to the turbo charger.

You have questions - we have answers. Here is a list of frequently asked questions:

• Understanding the Bullet Proof Diesel Engine Oil Cooling System
• What is your warranty?
• What are the symptoms of a bad EGR Cooler?
• What comes with the EGR Cooler?
• So my engine oil cooler is bad, why?
• What is an EGR Cooler?
• What is the difference between a Round and a Square EGR Cooler?
• What is an EGR Delete?
• What does the HPOP filter do and why do I need a new one?
• Why you need an Engine Oil Cooler with your EGR Cooler Upgrade
• So why replace your Engine Oil Cooler at the same time as your EGR Cooler?
• What does an engine oil cooler have to do with an EGR cooler?

Why the two parts don't seem to be related, they definitely are. First of all, a few facts:

• The engine oil cooler is NOT in the front of your rig. Its actually located on top of your engine directly underneath your engine oil filter.
• Your engine oil is cooled down by the coolant from the engine.
• Your engine oil in a Power Stroke diesel is vital to the operation and longevity of your motor.

So, with all that being said, what does the engine cooler have to do with the EGR cooler?

To understand why, you have to know how this system works. The cold coolant coming out of the radiator enters into the water pump. A portion of that coolant, about a gallon per minute, is pushed through the engine oil cooler on its way to the EGR cooler. Said a different way, the ONLY coolant that the EGR cooler gets is whatever coolant comes through the engine oil cooler. The problem comes about when you consider the design and placement of the engine oil cooler. Simply put it has tight, narrow passageways that conduct the oil and coolant through it. It is also set up like a plumbers trap, meaning that it catches lots of sediment because it's a low spot in the plumbing system. All of this sediment, in turn, plugs up and restricts the narrow channels inside the cooler. This, of course, restricts the flow of coolant getting through the cooler, much like an auto accident slows down traffic on a busy road.

All this restriction of flow through the engine oil cooler starves the EGR cooler of the coolant that it needs to do its job. Its sort of like asking a bunch of fire fighters to put out a forest fire with a garden hose, it just isn't going to go well. Because the EGR cooler isn't being cooled with enough flow, it tends to get upset and starts to crack and/or rupture. This, of course, is probably the reason why you are on BulletProofDiesel.com in the first place! The bad news is that the engine oil cooler is going to cost you a bit more money. The good news is that the labor to change both pieces is about the same if you do one or do both.

While your Ford 6.0L has problems, we have the solution. We have several kits that are designed to help you fix your 6.0, including the engine oil cooler.

The first series of kits, the Bullet Proof Kits, feature the Upgraded EGR Cooler, a stock Ford engine oil cooler, a complete Ford gasket set and the new and improved version of the high pressure oil pump screen. When all of these parts are installed, your 6.0 has a strong foundation going forward. Click here to learn more about these kits and the options available.

If you want the best solution, however, you will need to upgrade your engine oil cooler completely. For that, we have engineered the BulletProof Engine Oil Cooler. This product allows you to do what my Texas customers said best: either go big or stay stock. The BulletProof Oil Cooler kit has lots of features and improvements over the stock Ford engine oil cooler. Click here to learn more about this kit and the options available.

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Elizabeth Nelson, coolant program manager at Polaris Laboratories, a fluid-analysis company in Indianapolis, Ind., tells a story that would strike fear into the heart of any fleet manager. A class-8 on-highway truck seemed in fine condition when it left the West Coast, but at the end of its 6,000-mile cross-country run, a cylinder sleeve failed and catastrophic engine failure resulted. According to Nelson, the cause of the disaster was an electrical short in the truck's starter.

"An electrical short in a vehicle takes the path of least resistance to ground," says Nelson, "and often that's through the cooling system. In this instance, the electrical current passing through the coolant so quickly depleted the nitrite additive in the antifreeze, that the sleeves no longer had protection against cavitation. When coolant analysis shows a rapid depletion of nitrite, coupled with an increase in nitrates, it's always a red flag for an electrical short."

A combustion-gas leak, on the other hand, says Nelson, causes a sharp drop in pH (usually below 7) and an increase in sulfates. Air leaking into the engine cooling system, however, typically results in a lowered pH, she says, (but usually not below 7.5) and a drop in nitrite level (but not as rapid as with an electrical problem).

Although regular engine coolant analysis is a good way to keep tabs on the health of a vehicle's coolant system, coolant analysis is not nearly as popular as oil analysis. For many equipment owners, truth be told, what goes on in their machine's cooling system is somewhat of a mystery.

"Ask most fleet managers about their lube-maintenance programs, and they'll talk in detail," says Craig Gullett, brand marketing manager for Old World Industries, a major antifreeze manufacturer. "Ask about their coolant-maintenance programs, however, and more often than not, answers become rather uncertain."

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A frequent weak link in engine coolant maintenance, and the probable cause of many coolant-related engine problems, says Carmen Ulabarro, coolants market development specialist for ChevronTexaco, is the lack of understanding about what coolant is being used in the vehicle — and how to maintain that specific formulation.

What's in the radiator?

Virtually all heavy-duty antifreeze is roughly 95 percent ethylene glycol and 5 percent water and additives. The stuff that isn't made from ethylene glycol (only about 1 percent of all antifreeze sold) is made from propylene glycol, which is less toxic, but also more expensive. "Coolant" is created when glycol is mixed with various ratios of water. Typical ratios range from 30 to 60 percent glycol.

Heavy-duty antifreeze formulations differ from one another by virtue of the additive package blended into the ethylene glycol. Additive packages, of course, all have the same task, namely to fight rust, scale and corrosion — and in diesel engines, to protect wet cylinder sleeves from cavitation. But the additive packages among various antifreeze formulations have fundamentally different chemical fingerprints.

Until maybe 15 years ago, heavy-duty engines typically were filled with "conventional" antifreeze, identified by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standard D-. This antifreeze, however, which is still in prevalent use today, can't be used in diesel engines without first treating it with a "supplemental coolant additive" (SCA) that contains nitrite for protecting wet sleeves. The required initial treatment is an approximate 3-percent concentration of SCA (one pint per four gallons of cooling-system capacity).

Today, the preferred conventional antifreeze for diesel engines is "fully formulated," identified as ASTM D- or RP-329 by the Technology & Maintenance Council (TMC). This antifreeze is sold with an SCA package already blended in, typically including nitrate to protect iron and steel, tolyltriazole to protect copper and brass, borate or phosphate to buffer acids (formed as glycol breaks down), silicate to protect aluminum and nitrite (sometimes accompanied by molybdate) to form a cavitation-resistant barrier on sleeves.

These additives are depleted as the coolant works and ages, however, and must be replenished periodically with an SCA package. Especially critical is the renewal of an adequate nitrite level. But you must be careful here, because too much nitrite may cause solder corrosion, and excess accumulation of other additives causes "total dissolved solids" (TDS) to increase, possibly jeopardizing cooling efficiency and resulting in passage-clogging dropout. Cautious maintenance guidelines may suggest replacing fully formulated conventional coolant at two-year intervals to avoid TDS problems.

To simplify maintenance, the antifreeze industry developed "extended-life coolants" (ELC), which are formulations typically advertised with a service life of 600,000 miles or 12,000 hours. These formulations, originally at least, replaced the additive package used in fully formulated conventional antifreeze with "organic-acid inhibitors," designed to protect metal parts by forming a thin protective skin against destructive forces in the coolant.

These "organic-acid-technology" (or OAT) antifreezes use the base or neutralized version of organic (carbon-containing) acids, typically (but not always) the carboxylate acids of 2-ethyl hexanoic acid (2-EH) and/or sebacic acid. Most heavy-duty carboxylate formulations, however, also contain some of the additives used in fully formulated conventional antifreeze, namely nitrite and molybdate, and sometimes silicate. OAT formulations that include nitrite sometimes are called nitrited-organic-acid-technology antifreeze, or simply a NOAT.

According to some antifreeze experts, anytime you add inorganic inhibitors (like nitrite) to an organic-acid-based formulation, you have created a hybrid, or a Hybrid OAT, or a HOAT. Others say, though, that a hybrid is technically a product characterized by the use of non-carboxylate acids, such as benzoate, from benzoic acid, another organic acid.

Engine coolant maintenance

To ChevronTexaco's Ulabarro's point, the start of good coolant maintenance begins with knowing which antifreeze formulation is in your machine's radiator.

Most NOAT formulations, for example, require the addition of an "extender" at 300,000 miles or 6,000 hours to replenish nitrite, which is used up at a far slower rate in an extended-life coolant than in a fully formulated conventional. Important to note here, perhaps, is that European engine manufacturers are evaluating — maybe even leaning toward — the use of carboxylate-based extended-life coolants without nitrite.

Don't buy into the philosophy, however, that extended-life coolant needs no regular maintenance. The experts recommend inspecting it at the vehicle's regular maintenance intervals to make sure it's clear (no rust), that the color is right (not mixed with another antifreeze type) and that it has sufficient freeze/boil protection, best determined by using a refractometer.

Maintenance guidelines for cooling systems with fully formulated conventional antifreeze typically include periodic testing of SCA levels and appropriate adjustment, as well as periodic draining, flushing and refilling the system to avoid, as already noted, an excess of dissolved solids.

You can test the additive concentration of fully formulated conventional coolant by supplying samples to a fluids-analysis laboratory. Or, you can do the testing yourself by using paper test strips, which are chemically sensitive and change color to indicate freeze/boil point (glycol content), nitrite (or nitrite/molybdate) levels and, in some instances, pH.

When the addition of an SCA is indicated, keep in mind that two major types of SCA are available, one with a nitrite/borate formulation, the other with a nitrite/molybdate/phosphate formulation. It's probably best not to mix them, and it's best to use a test strip designed for the specific formulation. Those in the know say to be careful about buying bargain-priced SCA formulations, which may be inferior. Look for a stated compliance with an ASTM standard on the package, likely D-, to ensure that you're buying a quality product.

Some users of fully formulated conventional antifreeze, however, employ a coolant filter charged with an SCA package. This filter/additive assembly is designed to release metered amounts of additives over time and, thus, to maintain optimum levels. As long as testing indicates proper additive levels, and provided that top-up is done with a 50/50 mix of the correct antifreeze and deionized water, the assumption is that fully formulated conventional coolant can last far longer than the often-prescribed interval of two years.

On the other hand, says ChevronTexaco's Ulabarro, some users of fully formulated conventional antifreeze drain and replace coolant every year, but do not test or add SCA packages between those service intervals, thinking that nothing will go wrong in that short time. But, depending on the specific formulation of the antifreeze and on top-up practices, says Ulabarro, critical additives could be depleted in as little as 1,000 hours, potentially leaving the engine virtually unprotected for a long time.

In the everyday world, of course, fully formulated conventional and organic-acid antifreezes are sometimes inadvertently mixed in cooling systems. The primary concern about a mixed system is that the distinctively different additive packages in the two formulations will be diluted to the point that neither has the power to afford adequate protection. You're best off, say the experts, to pick an antifreeze type, take all practical safeguards to avoid mixing it with other types, and conscientiously follow the maintenance strategy recommended for the chosen antifreeze.

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How to do coolant analysis