7.3l knock - Page 2 - Diesel Forum

scratchynum1 · 03-30-2008, 10:21 PM

ya i can understand that and i guess my next step will be the oil cooler as the gasket set is only a few bucks and i removed the factory oil pressure switch and just moved to a mechanical guage. however im kinda hurting for those other parts and i will be going through an ordeal with my radiator as i sprung a huge leak around the upper hose as i must have leaned on it to hard when i was laying the heads back on the motor. *sigh*

ill try and get some more done on it tommarow i hope.
anyways i also saw today that the oil cooler after a bit of brake clean showed some orange slicone insted of a gasket.

also anyone know any other oil pan gaskets for these motor that don't suck and arn't made of cork like a rubber part number???

thanks guys

icanfixall · 03-31-2008, 12:55 PM

Most here don't use the cork or rubber oil pan gaskets. I have used Permatex Copper Plus for years without a single oil leak. It is what most do now instaed of a gasket. It is harder to clean up when you take things apart but thats part of doing the job correctly. Yes, your problem sounds like an oil starvation issue and the results of the pan comming off shows this. The oil pan is only about 1/4 inch away from the oil pickup so be careful around this. I had a dent in my pan and when I tried to install my drain plug with the magnet on it I couldn't get it in. This was on a rebuild I had just finished and was finishing things up when I found this. Pan came off to pound out the ednt. The oil cooler could be particially plugged too and there is no way you can clean it out. Probably time for a replacement cooler.

farnereinar · 03-31-2008, 01:22 PM

neat to see you took my advice! im not sure through what passageways the oil takes from the pump to the pushrods....with my valvecovers off at idle i get a nice trickle of oil coming out of the pushrods and over the rockers.....be nice if there was someway you could run solvent through the motor without harming it...i guess thats what high detergent oils are for...

i heard for the oil cooler gaskets use new factory gaskets, that have sort of an orange silicone built into the gasket around the holes, when you see them youll know what i mean

a friend of mine had bad luck, went through 2 sets of paper gaskets from napa before just going and getting the factory set

i was able to do mine in the truck, i cut a nice 4x4 block into a V and was able to jack up under the harmonic balancer after undoing the motor mount on that side.....i dont think the oil pan would be strong enough to jack

problem with mine is that the aintfreeze side was clogged solid with silicate goo, and the antifreese passageway closed up, somehow it built up enough pressure that it blew a hole in the side of the aluminum end cap driving down the road one day, the oil side is a bunch of fins the oil runs through, i dont really see how it would clog.....unless something pretty big somehow got through the oil filter

cause i think oil flows through the filter on the back side of the cooler first right?

scratchynum1 · 03-31-2008, 06:29 PM

didnt' get anything done on it today, i had a long day with working on the fleet and kinda gave up when i had time.

i guess when i get the time ill pull the oil cooler off and see if its bad full of crap or somthing.

if it isn't then i will be buying an oil pump for it as its now only beging to tap at higher rpms as you rev it up just about idle, and im leaning towards the pump being junk and having problems with the rpm.

also really rtv i think that this is reason i found so much in my sump
as the rtv that was put on some of it ended up in the pan. i guess when i put take it back apart ill use rtv and not deal with that damn gasket.

farnereinar: i apriciate your advise and sounded along the lines of what i was thinking. and you were right on!
also thanks for the advise on the gaskets i really don't feel like pulling it apart more than once. even though im pretty sure i have enough room to do it farly easliy.

thanks guys
any other sugjestions or ideas or pretty much anything is great, and i really appricate it.

farnereinar · 03-31-2008, 08:44 PM

no prob bud, i personally dont really think its your oil cooler, as i said it would take a good bit of something to clog it to the point you have improper oil flow, id keep running it and im sure there must be a clogged passage somewhere, wonder if theres any way to blow air back through the thing.....

otherwise add some solvents to your oil and keep running it and hopefully it goes away altogether?

dont know what eats oil sludge though...besides diesel and a brush...

91diesel · 03-31-2008, 10:01 PM

The oil is picked up by the pump, goes to the cooler, filter, then engine.

http://photos.thedieselstop.com/data...Oil_system.bmp

Me thinks your oil cooler is plugged. I saw a warning once to disassemble the oil cooler after a debris-generated failure to make sure its not clogged because it doesnt see filtered oil.

twon

scratchynum1 · 03-31-2008, 10:14 PM

wow awsome picture/description thats great thanks for that.

i guess that would also explain my motor turning oil into black gold in about three minutes of run time. maybe its possible that the cooler is packed full of dirt/silcone/crap i hope its cleanable.

i guess ill be doing that for sure tommarow.

thanks guys.

91diesel · 03-31-2008, 11:18 PM

Well I wouldnt worry about the tainted oil. It doesnt take mch leftover black oil to turn new stuff black. I did an oil change something like 250 miles ago and its been black for about 200 of them. I know because my drain plug leaks a little

and i wipe it off whenever I get under the truck to make myself feel better. 287k, fixed all the other leaks and this is the only oil leak?? pathetic. I will have to get a new one in 4750 miles

Anthony

scratchynum1 · 04-02-2008, 08:24 PM

finally got the oil cooler unbolted today and as i said,
no remains of gaskets just orange slicone no gaskets ever used.
and put my fingers in the cooler and came up with the same stuff i found in the pan dirt clods slicone. i didn't however get it removed from the truck as i dont' have enough room to get it out forward or aft so im gonna have to pull the exhaust manifold and then wait to see how much more crap will come out of it.
sorry it took me so long ive been nursing a broken thumb as of late

thanks for the responses.

cdnsarguy · 04-05-2008, 02:01 AM

Just undo the nuts on the left engine mount and raise the engine enought to place a 1" block under the mount.... No need to remove the exhaust manifold.....

scratchynum1 · 04-08-2008, 07:36 PM

welp got my cooler off and out of the truck today.
pulled the ends and found a few little scraps of slicone and dirt nothing to bad
cooler inside looked great and clean. untill i tried to poor solvent through it.
filled the front side of the cooler and waited for it to poor out the back and waited and waited and waited nothing came out the other side. so i kept throughing solvant then brake clean then solvant and now i can get fluid to go both ways front to back back to front but it takes a long time to get through the cooler. theres definatly a plug in it.
where do i get a new cooler?
its definatly not flowing much oil if any.

pretty sure coolers are supposed to free flow. but any input??

thanks

cdnsarguy · 04-08-2008, 07:46 PM

First visit your banker and make sure you have a good credit rating...............

I would suggest IH for the cheapest OEM part........ Ebay for new/used.

I would contact IH and ask them what you or they can do to clean test yours....... just DO NOT be poking things in the holes........the tubes are twisted to my knowledge.

icanfixall · 04-09-2008, 06:19 PM

You need a new or rebuilt oil cooler. Ford Parts Online sells them for about $270.. new. They are a fin type cooler that coolant flows thru from the tube side. The flow is coolant from back to front and coolant form front to back. Back being the filter end just in case you needed to know. I have seen some rebuilt coolers that have had the outer shell cut off and rewelded to clean them out. They have several baffle plates in them that also act as coolant tube supports. I think there are 4 or 5 baffles...

cdnsarguy · 04-09-2008, 07:22 PM

Quote:

The flow is coolant from back to front and coolant form front to back.

ICFA........ wanna tell us which is witch............. thanks

scratchynum1 · 04-09-2008, 10:02 PM

well i called international today and they quoted me 250 for the cooler and about 10 bucks for gaskets.
yesterday i ended up dumping the cooler in a 5 gallon bucket of tyme (wicked parts cleaner) and this morning i got gasket material out of one of the sides of the bundle. i also put a air line to it and blocked it off on one side and blew it out with cleaner inside( mistake on my part made a big mess) but now it seems to flow a lot better than it did when dunked into the cleaner i can hear it moving freely about the cleaner all the way to the top and it takes far less time than it did before. and if i poor cleaner in one side it will flow out the other now insted of backing up and just overflowing the top. i also did the hose test (crank on the hose and shove it in one side and see what you get out the back) and it flows maybe a little less if not all of the pressure thats put into it in a nice stream out the other side. its soaking over night in tyme as i don't really have the cash to go out and blow 300 on a cooler.
I know our motors look for more volume than pressure but, with baffels inside how much flow should i be looking to get.
the fins inside the cooler look perfect. should i be looking elsewhere for the clog at this point or just figure that it being able to back up to the top while sitting on a downhill slope a cause/diagnoised problem for an intermittent oil starvation problem?

thanks guys