Flush your 6.0 Cooling system

[Gravel Rat]

I did my truck today a 2006 F-450 with 52,000 miles, Ford says you can go 100,000 on the factory coolant. Well I decided I'am not going to do that and I did a flush with distilled water I didn't use the flushing VC9 fluid your asking for troubles using a cleaner. I drained the rad and refilled with plain water drove around flushed it out did it again flushed it out, used a hose and flushed out the expansion tank while running the engine. Filled the rad up with distilled water flushed out the tap water then refilled the rad with new FORD Premium gold coolant.

Lets just say the coolant that came out of the rad looks like a dark ale beer it is really dark looking I was really surprised when I seen the color of the new coolant. So there is lots of crap or rust in the old coolant if I left it till 100,000 miles I may end up with oil cooler problems.

So my advice to anybody with a 6.0 PSD and you never had a rad flush and coolant change do it right away.

For us Canadians Ford Premium Gold is 28 dollars a gallon from the Ford dealer and you need to use the Ford coolant.

Took me about 5 hours to flush out the old coolant and replace it with new.

[psdnate]

You should get a coolant filter. That will clean everything out of there that was left behind from the factory.

[Leroy_1]

You should get a coolant filter. That will clean everything out of there that was left behind from the factory.

Yep, lots of folks adding the coolant filters. Check out dieselsite.com they have some nice kits.

[Gravel Rat]

I will look into that after Christmas, probably in January after the holidays are over with.

[treadlite]

You might want to search the diesel truck sites a little further.... there's a pretty strong following out there that the coolant that should be used in the 6.0 should be something like rotella or cat ELC.

The theory is that the ford gold coolant precipitates out the silicates in the high temperature EGR cooler, and that is what is plugging the oil coolers up.

International uses fleetrite ELC in the VT365's, and recommends an ELC...

Ditto on the coolant filter, but don't buy one off the net from the diesel suppliers. Your local baldwin supplier can sell you a filter base and the filters, you just need to come up with the fittings and shut off valves....

[SimonCX]

A coolant filter is a good idea and everything I've heard the ford coolant is what causes problems, ELC coolant is the way to go and cheaper to buy. I was also surprised what came out when I used the vc9 the first time, I don't see how they recommond going 100k on the coolant.

[Gravel Rat]

The problem for myself is there isn't much selection when it comes to buying autoparts and supplies. I guess I could have ordered some ELC, so I went with the Ford coolant. One thing I learned is your not supposed to use regular tap water, not like the olden days when you could.

[jwsland]

I need to look into the coolant filter.