2005 Ford power stroke

[stephenc]

I need some opinions

I have a 2005 Ford f250 powerstroke .. it's the 6.0 motor . With what I am assuming is either a blown head gasket or a bad head .

I bought the truck at an estate sale 10 years ago when it was about a year old and only gave about 20% of what the truck cost when new so it doesn't owe me any real money .

But anyways I parked the truck about a year ago when it started pumping water out the exhaust . Due to both lack of interest and funds it has sat in my brothers pole building since .
But now the car I have been driving is quickly approaching the end of its useful life and I need to get the truck fixed and sell it to fund the purchase of something reliable to drive .
So what I need the opinions on is from a re-sell stand point would I be better off just having the heads checked and going with an oem style head gasket and calling it good .
Or spend an extra few hundred bucks and go with head studs and o rings

The truck has 125,000 miles .. rust free and is a 4x4 four door long bed with an auto and air . And no other options which should hopefully make it somewhat desirable to those wanting a work truck that doesn't have all the gizmos to go bad .

[Russ Hanscom]

Why make it fancy if you are just going to sell it. Chances are a buyer is not going to care. I would go stock and be done with it.

Just passing 260,000 miles with my 03.

[steamin10]

My experience is with the 97 7.3 power joke diesel. It had an uneven idle when bought, and thought to have a bad cam in it, at just under 190k. The killer was a jerk would-be mechanic broke the fuel pump in the valley and lost the parts in the engine below. So I never heard it run when I brought my pig-inna-poke home. to keep this story short and relavent, I decided the 4 door dually would just be repaired, and returned to the road, and see what happens.

We pulled the engine out, and a heavy custom stand had to be built to hold it. Inspection and tear down revealed not only a bad cam shaft worn away on 2 lobes, but two valves burnt. Further inspection revealed several intake valves with bent heads, on the same cylinders as the problem exhaust valves. Contacting a racing friend we sent the cam to a regrinder in St. Louis, and they returned a cam that was perfect in 4 days for $140. This was compared to Ford parts wanting $650 for the same part with the induction wheel. We serviced the heads ourself, and pulled all the 8 ooz coke bottle sized injectors and resealed them with new o-ring sets, cleaned the valve seats up and tested the seal with blueing, and hand lapped them in. They were all acceptable with no surprises. What was surprising was the roller cam followers were junk. Several badly damaged had wiped out the cam by skidding over the hump. A complete set was installed, and the valve train on each failed exhaust valve renewed in new parts, push rod, rocker, spring, everything. Those two lines were the only suspect so the parts were comparatively cheep insurance. So the cylinders were stoned to restore a cross hatch for break in purposes, and the engine assembled according to book practice. The total was $700 dollars in parts including a turbo bolt kit. At the time, a junk yard motor was going for over 3 K and out of my range. Nothing available was low milage being 150 K or greater. Without being fancy, just making it run again, has proven out. After a short break in period, a foot to the floor test run on vacant interstate showed the tach maxing out against the wind 400 rpm short of redline, and that being way into 90+ speedo limits. Very satsfying for a 4 door dually hevyweight pickup.

Well into the 250 + milage range it has been lightly used and presented no problems except for a cylinder that died for mysterious reasons. It turned out to be a bad electric connector that passes to the electronic injector.. Silicone anchors the broken lock on the clip, and all has been well since.

The 7.3 is the IH 444E series installed by ford until 99 I think. Altho the 6.0 is Fords idea of a diesel, it is much lighter than what I have. Search around for parts, as Ford is rather testy with price, Bottom line is kill the problem, and move forward. It sounds like a gasket problem to me, but should reveal itself on teardown. I would keep it as simple as Simon and not get fancy. Fix it and move on, if you are not going to keep it. At current pricing, you may consider using it for a while.

For my part, I have bought the last truck I will own. I will be pairing down my stable this spring.

[warmstrong1955]

I had a friend that had a head gasket problem with his.....2003 I think.
He heard that there were some that had head bolt problems. I don't know if that was the whole bunch of 6.0L engines, or just some due to a batch of B/O bolts.
When he fixed it, he bought an aftermarket head stud kit, ARP made, from Summit Racing. Spendy....like $1000.00 at the time.

If you're going to sell it, and you do determine it's a head gasket(s), go cheap.
If you're going to keep it, you probably should think about at least replacing the head bolts with stock, or one of the stud kits.

Bill

[stephenc]

I had thought about keeping the truck , but I can't think of any logical reason to .
It's big , heavy and expensive to maintain.
I wouldn't mind having a regular cab 2wd half ton pickup but even that isn't a real necessity for me . For the three or four times a year I need a truck it isn't much of an effort to just borrow my brothers .
What I'd really like to have is an older low mileage jeep Cherokee with a nice reliable 4.0 and a little utility trailer .

But back to the truck at hand .. my first instinct was to go the cheap route and I'm very glad to see that you fellows agree with it .
Even the cheap route isn't that cheap , my brother figures that with new glow plugs ( that it needs ) and not needing any major head work it will cost at least $1000
And probably run close to $1500 to get it going again .
And I could add about $600 to that if I went with head studs .

With the truck still being rust free and low mileage I'd like to think it's worth about $10k
And should be a quick easy sell if I let it go for $9k or close to it .

[SteveHGraham]

We Cummins snobs refer to that engine as the "Power Choke."

Of course, if you bought it cheap and expect to make money, well, hey...what a great truck.

[warmstrong1955]

We Cat people refer to Cummin's things, as 'Come-Aparts'.

[SteveHGraham]

Envy is an ugly thing!!!

[Russ Hanscom]

Easy to tell the dodges, noisy and in a cloud of black smoke.

[stephenc]

I can't say I have any complaints with the truck other then the size of it , I did use it for 9 years without a single problem .
But I'll also be honest , I never liked it from day one . The noisy engine drove me bonkers . And it is a serious pain in the butt to park anywhere .
If it hadn't been cheap I'd of never bought it . I'll be happy to see the end of it .

[SteveHGraham]

Easy to tell the dodges, noisy and in a cloud of black smoke.

Those are features.

[steamin10]

(To the tune of Wabash Cannon Ball)

Cant you feel the tingle, the rumble and the roar,
shes smoking up to heaven, while his foot goes to the floor.

He shifts it out of second, and rolls up in speed,
a big 'ol heavy wrecker is all you really need.

Couldnt resist that. sorry.
I love my big truck, and Mom Rose herded school buses for a while. She is right at home doin Dually.
Shes a little dated now, but still has a lot of life, so I am keepin her.

The truck that is...