Thick white smoke

[LCW]

'04 6.0, 50k miles. Yesterday leaving work, I noticed a lot of white smoke coming out the tailpipe. It cleared up after about 10 minutes. The engine ran fine the whole time. It did it again later that evening going to pick up my daughter - thick white smokescreen behind me for about 10 minutes, then cleared up.

One thing that could be related: I got gas during lunch - about 30 gallons of ULSD from the truck stop near my house, where I always fill up.

Any ideas?

 

[keanoknick]

Sounds like your EGR cooler to me. Check you coolant level before driving again, and see how low you are. I would get it taken care of ASAP as it's only going to get worse, and could actually get bad enough to hydrolock your engine, meanwhile, try to park with the nose of the truck uphill to help prevent the hydrolock.

To check if it's your EGR cooler for sure, with the truck on lvl ground, pull the EGR valve, if you see moisture, or coolant, inside the intake manifold where you just pulled out the EGR valve, then it is deffinantly the EGR cooler.

Hope this help, let us know what you find out.

 

[bushpilot]

check your coolant level in the degas bottle !

 

[LCW]

Degas bottle was almost empty (cold). It wasn't like that a couple weeks ago. I dropped it off at the dealer last night.

 

[keanoknick]

Keep us updated.

I hope you get it back soon.

 

[LCW]

Damn keanoknick, you're good! I just talked to the dealer, they're replacing the EGR cooler. Oil cooler was leaking too, so they're replacing that. All under the factory diesel warranty.

 

[bushpilot]

Degas bottle was almost empty (cold). It wasn't like that a couple weeks ago. I dropped it off at the dealer last night.

 

[keanoknick]

I would see if you could get them to put in a new EGR valve while there at it, just for good measure. If they don't you should atleast clean it once you get the truck back. Bush is the resident expert on cleaning the EGR valve so I'll let him elaborate.

 

[keanoknick]

I would also suggest putting on a coolant filter, it will remove all of the casting sand and gunk out of your coolant system, which acts like sandpaper on the inside of the EGR cooler, causing them to leak.

Try THIS ONE from Dieselsite, one of our sponsors. I'll be putting one on my truck in a few weeks, cheap insurance.

 

[bushpilot]

although im inclinded to agree w/ nick, although i think the problem is
more an issue of the sand (or stop leak as some would insist) that
is plugging up the oil cooler...

the oil cooler is cooled by ANTIFREEZE/COOLANT, the egr cooler is
immediatly NEXT in the flow of coolant, after the oil cooler...if im right
the oil cooler (coolant passages) becomes plugged or restricted and
as a results the egr is not COOLED enough...the lack of cooling thru
the egr cooler COULD be the cause of the EGR COOLER CRACKING !