2004 Powerstroke Excursion 6.0 Must do mods?

[TriBeard]

Whats up Guys! Thanks for the comments... So basically it looks like Ill either use the keep it stock, maintain it well, drive like a grandma and hope... Or Spend a lot of coin and go all in! I am thinking of doing the X or V codes and I just ordered some Archoil, I figured id give it a shot. I mean if its good enough for Jay!

Started tearing the Ex down yesterday, removing some of the interior boxes and clean up.

Thanks guys keep the advice coming.

These motors for sure have their issues, and I'm more of a Cummins guy myself, but I've been tempted by the excursion a few times. I would think a fire department truck would be a pretty safe bet as the odds of it being tuned or pulling hard and heavy its whole life are pretty slim. My dad has an 03 F250, and he's got over 200k on it and it still runs fine. I think he's getting ready to do the EGR cooler on it now, but otherwise it's been fine for him. It's lived a pretty easy life for the time he's had it though. He's only towed a uhaul one time with it from NC to IN though, so YMMV, especially if you tow heavy often.

Point I'm trying to make is, they do have a bad rap, and they can cost you a ton to fix, but if they're not pushed past stock at all and you take care of it, many of them can be reliable enough. The 6.4 on the other hand, is a different story.

 

[Pangle]

Ya thats what Im hoping with this one.. It is from the next county over and its a very HiGH dollar area which would lead me to believe since it was FLEET maintained that it was most likely done right and with the right parts, also this was a reserve unit which never really saw much action.

These motors for sure have their issues, and I'm more of a Cummins guy myself, but I've been tempted by the excursion a few times. I would think a fire department truck would be a pretty safe bet as the odds of it being tuned or pulling hard and heavy its whole life are pretty slim. My dad has an 03 F250, and he's got over 200k on it and it still runs fine. I think he's getting ready to do the EGR cooler on it now, but otherwise it's been fine for him. It's lived a pretty easy life for the time he's had it though. He's only towed a uhaul one time with it from NC to IN though, so YMMV, especially if you tow heavy often.

Point I'm trying to make is, they do have a bad rap, and they can cost you a ton to fix, but if they're not pushed past stock at all and you take care of it, many of them can be reliable enough. The 6.4 on the other hand, is a different story.

 

[drewactual]

the 6.4 is the best engine ever made by Navstar/international harvester... Ford/epa are the ones that put the bad juju on them by tacking on emissions instead of carefully considering them before doing so...

 

[tgreening]

The 6.0 suffered from a handful of issues which were not especially difficult fixes, for a properly equipped shop, but they are expensive. The 6.4 suffered from probably only one significant issue, the dpf system, which was easy and not incredibly expensive to rectify.

I think the point being missed is expense to fix when something does go wrong. I can buy a full set of injectors for my 7.3 for not much more than the cost of ONE injector for the 6.4 I had.

Blow HPFP on the 6.4 and go to have that fixed. Same with the HPOP on the 6.0. The problem is when one of those items goes bad they tend to take out everything down stream. For the 6.4 it means replacing the pump, the fuel filters, the fuel cooler, all the injectors, and if done Fords recommended way, all the fuel lines both feed and return along with the fuel tank. Everything in the fuel system gets replaced, because of a bad pump. The non Ford way all the lines, the tank, and anything else in the system that can be gets yanked and at the very least thorough flushed out.

Do that at Ford and it is way into five figure territory. The 6.0 is only slightly less scary because when it's apart there are all the known 6.0 issues to rectify while you're at it.

Power stroke has done 3 trucks for me and done a bang up job on all, so I don't know where the 'he'll destroy your truck" comes from. Besides, Bill is a salesman, he doesn't work on trucks. He maintenance manager knows his crap and best I could tell so do his main techs. My bust I can't remember his name since its been a few years since I was last there, but he did right by me. And even he will tell you, Bill makes videos and I fix trucks, he does his job and I do mine.

Anyway, both great engines when solid, an absolute nightmare cost wise when it comes time to fix. Stay in one long enough and you'll get a taste of that.

 

[drewactual]

ULSD is killing engines, especially engines with high pressure pumps that rely on that fuel for lubrication and cooling... gotta add lubricity- it's a must...

piezioelectric injectors don't go south near as often as HEUI injectors. they are expensive, but they should last the life of the truck... should... got to do with the lubricity, again.

and no, Bill Hewitt straight up tells you he uses customers as laboratory rats... he 'explores' and 'experiments' on customer rigs... let that sink in... now, he absolutely has some good stuff, too- but you gotta be careful what you believe and what you don't.

the hands down best place on the interwebby to seek assistance is power stroke ORG, and drill down to the model year sections in the forums. there are answers there, short cuts (where permissible) and good discussions about the do's and don't's of these rigs.

I'm not trying to be a jerk, I'm just being straight as I would wish people to be with me.

 

[Pangle]

I did a bit more work on the rig today. I was trying to chase down a squeak in the Serp belt area and though that the idler pulley needed to be replaced as it had a slight wobble and seemed to be where the squeaking was coming from. I picked up a new idler pulley from Ford and went to put it on. Before I do any job I will look to the interwebs for advice and how to's.. I went right to a Youtube video that showed a super cool trick which I was not aware of. If you need to do any work on the serp belt or any of the components operated off of the serp all you need to do is pull on the belt from the pass side of the tuck and simultaneously flick a metal bracket on the tens pulley and it locks it in place. This allow the belt to remain generally in place while you remove what you need. The entire job took me less than 5 min! I call that a win.... however: did not fix the squeak and it turns out the belt just need some dressing... so much for trying to solve the larger issue first. At least it now has a new idler pulley.

I was also able to take out all of the interiors custom cabinets and modify them how i wanted. I was able to keep the majority of the drawers and cabinets I wanted which will allow me to build it into a sleeping platform also. All in all a good day and I'm Making progress.

ON a side note, I have a buddy that wants to GIVE me a 34 ft Avion trailer from the late 70's early 80s... Its a lot like an airstream (some say better) but it does need some work... I would have to remove most of the interior to make it how I wanted. The problem is the logistics of the thing.. 34ft is not exactly small and its a pretty big project. What do ya think? should I scoop it and do it or what?!?!

 

[drewactual]

i wager your chirp is a tensioner... they sure like to give up the ghost.

 

[Pangle]

Ya could be.. I gave her some belt dressing and it went away for now.. I will monitor and see. I think I am either going to order a 4" lift with the spring packs, or aI am going to get some 250 from springs.. any thoughts?

i wager your chirp is a tensioner... they sure like to give up the ghost.

ALSO: The excursion pulls like a train from 0- cruise speed what ever I choose that to be, but when I am at cruise and I try to push the throttle passed half throttle it does not accelerate at all! The check engine light is on? Could this be a fail safe to keep it from using too much power? I have not run the code yet to see what its saying next on the list.

 

[drewactual]

I just don't know enough about the 6.0 to speculate without knowing the code... 'fellers at powerstroke org will shoot you straight...

personally, I'd just go ahead and properly lift... c'mon, man, you know you're heading that way anyway!! may as well do it right instead of piecing it together along the way... I've done that several times. Give Trevor, owner of PMF fabrication a shout... he does all kinds of good stuff.

 

[TheRealBuddyExpedition]

Bullydog EGR Cooler is a must....

Sent from my DEA work phone.

 

[thethePete]

I prefer Bulletproof Diesel, personally, but either way, yes, an upgraded EGR cooler is cheap insurance. BPD has outstanding customer support, and they are the go-to guys for bulletproofing a 6.0. They built their business around it, and I would hesitate to put anything but their stuff on a 6.0

 

[As Scooter]

I have had a bunch of the 6.0's. Most were work trucks. The one that was the most reliable was my personal truck. I ended up getting it bullet-proofed, through Bullet Proof diesel. After that, it was dead reliable. I did use Archoil in it to keep up the lubricity in the injectors. I loved the truck, and had 180,000 miles on it when it was sold.

 

[Pangle]

More work today.. no more stripes



A VERY LONG DAY! getting the stripes off was a major pain but I think it looks a lot better

 

[Pangle]

More work completed over the past week or so... I was having an acceleration issue which was traced to a cracked hose on top of the engine which is supposedly a common problem with these. I could not believe that a 3 dollar hose and a tip from Diesel Tech Ron on youtube completely fixed the problem. The thing runs absolutely incredible now with the help of the archoil, which seems to be helping her realize her youth again. So far I have been really impressed with the 6.0, plenty of power decent mileage so far. I am also going to be doing the track bar bushings and I have ordered a remote for the roof mounted light. I have also contacted my painter about a paint job. I have considered Linex-ing the whole truck but they wanted 6k just to do the Red part. I have also considered a wrap, I think it will look good but it is also around 2500. As of right now I am either going to monstaliner the whole thing or going to have my painter do a decent paint job on her!

Opinions of course are welcome, and also color opinions I am open to hear!

 

[dave1014]

Subscribed!
Check out powerstrokehelp.com there's some great informational videos on that site. Also look into Archoil.com like Workerdrone mentioned. Jay Leno's garage uses the stuff. I'm about to start running the fuel treatment.
I'm running a Bully Dog programmer which you can set up to de-fuel when certain thresholds are reached. If I had to do it again I'd probably go with a Banks unit. It's more conservative and Gale Banks is a diesel guru.

NO NO NO. Bill Hewitt is an idiot. Run away from him