spitzair

Hello everyone,

My truck seems to be losing coolant but I can't find the leak... I just noticed today while doing an oil change that the expansion tank was way down on coolant, not sure how long it's been like that but I'm definitely gonna keep my eye on it for the next little while. I looked all over for any leaks and there are none, I looked for bubbles in the rad while running the engine and there were none, there's no sign of oil in the coolant nor is there coolant in the engine oil, and I don't have a leaking heater core. This leads me to suspect that my EGR cooler is leaking, but aside from taking it off is there any way to tell for sure? I'd like to order a delete kit and be done with it but if there's something else wrong I want to fix it first. Is there anything else that I should be looking for? Oh and if it is indeed the EGR cooler, would there be any harm in bypassing the coolant lines to it for the time being until I can get a proper delete kit? I've already unplugged the EGR valve years ago so it doesn't regurgitate the exhaust...
Thanks!

BigIron70

EGR cooler leaking and I would not recomend disconnecting cooler lines. Pull the crossover tube and take a look at the EGR valve. If it looks like it was just steam cleaned then the cooler is leaking.

Rrloren1

Had a similar problem about 18 months ago. Took several days before the leak became obvious and was the Water Pump.

spitzair

Thanks for the replies guys! Bigiron, if I have my EGR valve disabled would it still look steam cleaned? It's been disabled for years now... Rrloren1, I'll keep an eye on my pump too.

BigIron70

The coolant most likely would go out the exhaust then and not be going into the intake. If leaking bad enough you will get white smoke out the tail pipe.

spitzair

I took the crossover tube off just now to see if i could see anything and sure enough I found some antifreeze at the EGR valve, I guess even with the valve disabled some exhaust still sneaks by... So now I have to decide which delete kit I want...

BigIron70

The EGR valve never seal 100% of the exhaust gas out, some does get by the valve. I have 3 or 4 EGR coolers sitting in the scrap iron pile. The intake should be soot free by now with the coolant flush, Ford diesels hydro lock when the EGR coolers fail and then the head gastket blows or worse so count your blessing you don't own a Ford.

spitzair

Ahhh, that brings back some not-so-pleasant memories of a night freezing in the middle of nowhere... My boss had a Ford F350 and I was driving up to Points North Saskatchewan, about 4 hours drive from the nearest town... It was a very cold spring morning, at about 1 AM when the truck started to overheat and lost all it's coolant! I had a few bottles of water with me that I took just in case, put them in the cooling system to hopefully limp it back to camp, no such luck, it promptly blew them out the exhaust too... So there I was stranded in the middle of nowhere for hours (of course no cell service, no anything... and no traffic on the road), with no heat in the truck. THankfully I was prepared to spend the night in the cold and for some reason I broke down close to a payphone that worked... So yes, I am very thankful I don't own a ford!