I've decided to do my write up and it seems that typing all of this may take longer than the actual build did. I'm sorry I didn't take a ton of pictures, but I hope that I can give enough detail to help give those among us that are on the fence that extra motivation that they need to take this on. This was the second time I have had to pull my heads off because the first time I put in Black Onyx gaskets that blew. I read through other build threads and took little tid bits from others that helped me out greatly this time around. There is a TON of knowledge around here.


Preface: You can do it
The 6.0 Powerstroke is not a hard engine to work on. As intimidating as it may be, behind the computers and wiring harnesses, it's still a pushrod V8. It's not scary, just relax and take it one bolt at a time. There is no rush, this job can be done in a weekend if you have everything prepped and ready to go, or can take months if required. Life gets in the way. Don't get discouraged, this IS possible for you to do yourself. If you find yourself getting frustrated, walk away for a bit and come back to it, there is nothing to get worked up about. You have to believe in yourself, you have to believe in your truck, don't lose faith in her. Doing this job yourself will save you thousands, many shops are charging upwards of $7,000 to do this job these days and it will make you feel so much better having done it yourself. It is a wonderful bonding experience with your truck, you will know the inner workings of your engine and you will understand everything better having done the hands on. It will give you such a sense of pride and satisfaction when you turn that key and she roars to life after open heart surgery. YOU GOT THIS!

 

Chapter 1: Show me the money.

If your truck does not have head studs, start rolling your pennies NOW and really start monitoring the truck to figure out what else you might need. I personally will never trust a 6.0 with TTY bolts, especially if it has a factory EGR cooler. If you can't swing the bill yet and you don't have a coolant filter, GET ONE, it won't stop the possibility of blowing the gaskets, but it will keep a lot of junk out of the EGR and oil coolers and buy you a little bit of time to get some things together. There is absolutely no reason to go deep enough into the engine to replace head gaskets and install studs, then put the original EGR and oil coolers back in. So you need to decide if you are going to stay with the stock design and put in another oil/coolant heat exchanger or if you're going aftermarket with a fancy shmancy front mount oil cooler. Find out what your likely cost is going to be and add 50%. Things happen, parts break, bolts strip, drain plugs get forgotten, and you need to be able to recover your build from that without putting yourself in too much of a bind. You can expect to spend around $3,000 for your new upgraded parts and fluids, add $1,500 if you go with a remote oil cooler, another $400 if your FICM is on it's way out, another $400 if you have an injector go out, another $600 for a machine shop to check/deck/mag/pressure test your heads (my bill came to $560 and my heads were only .003” from flat). See how quick all of this starts to add up? When you look at the big picture though, with all of this work done, it turns the 6.0 into a 500,000 mile engine and if your rig is paid off, this ~$5,000 investment isn't even a full year of payments on a new truck. Personally, I'll still take my truck over a brand new one.

 

These first few are a bit dry but I feel are necessary in the preparation stages leading up to the build. Bear with me, it gets better.


Chapter 2: Plan your build, build your plan.

Start doing a lot of reading, study the forums, ask the questions. The 6.0 Bible is a great thing to have, but it doesn't have all of the answers, there are some torque specs that are not in there, and some specs that are require further research. For instance, Figure C for the oil rail is for the early model 6.0, the later generation has a completely different shape and bolt pattern. Also, the bible does not have everything, specs for the downpipe, CAC pipes and the rocker boxes were the big ones for me. I printed out pages 84-87 and lined out things that I wasn't touching such as the camshaft follower, connecting rods, etc so that I could make quicker work of finding the spec that I needed. With that, make sure you are reading the right torque spec, the EGR cooler mounting hardware has 2 specs, if you just do a quick glance and don't verify, you'll be in trouble. The port on the intake manifold where the cooler bolts up is the flange and only requires 10lb/ft, if you try to crank it to the 23lb/ft then you will be making a parts run to go get new bolts. Ask me how I know. Thankfully, that is one of the few places where the bolt will fail before the internal threads, you overtorque anything mounting to the rocker boxes and the steel bolts will win over the aluminum rocker box every time.

Have a place that you can work comfortably. If you can get it inside a garage or shop, even better, the less that you and the opened up engine are exposed to the elements, the better.

Study the engine bay and your workspace, figure out where you are going to put things and make sure that you have enough room for everything and are still able to move around. The bed of the truck is great for storage but can be a hassle going back and forth. I like to start far away and have my parts line come toward the truck so that during reassembly, everything is in order the way that it came off. You will need to keep track of the assembly order, if you take part A off before part B then 9 times out of 10, you have to install part B before part A, lining things up makes it easier for me.

Call around and make sure there is a machine shop near you that you do the work on your cylinder heads. Even call a couple and compare prices but keep in mind that you get what you pay for.

Don't become a hermit, make sure that you still spend time with your family. I know the feeling of just wanting to get it finished, but that doesn't mean that you can't work after you have dinner as a family, or tuck the little one in.

If you can't take time off of work, then account for that, don't expect to get it done in one day. The flip side to that is don't draw it out longer than necessary, the more time that elapses between the tear down and the build up makes the visual in your head foggier and foggier of how things fit together.

Don't work too much in one session, pushing further causes fatigue and fatigue causes mistakes. It's ok to stop for the night, but make sure that you complete the task at hand, i.e. don't decide to take a break when you've only torqued 7 out of the 10 cap nuts on the studs.

 

Chapter 3: Buy everything

Once you've drained your kid's college fund and worked the corner for a little bit, you have a nice fat wad of cash burning a hole in your pocket. Now give the cash to your truck, it knows what it needs better than you do, just make it promise that it won't use it on drugs and alcohol. All kidding aside, make sure that you have as much as you can in advance, it makes the process go much smoother when you aren't getting frustrated waiting on stuff to show up.


The parts:
This list is for someone that is starting with a stock engine, if you already have head studs and just need to replace the gaskets then adjust accordingly. Just make sure that you replace every o-ring that you pull out of the engine. The only things that I've never heard of having a problem if reused are the valve cover gaskets.

-Head Studs
-Oil cooler and o-rings/gaskets
-Head gaskets
-Injector o-ring kits (8)
-Stand pipes
-Dummy plugs
-EGR cooler and gaskets
-Intake manifold gaskets
-STC update fitting
-IPR screen
-HPOP screen
-Thermostat
-3 Gallons of ELC coolant
-5 Gallons of oil (yes, I know these truck only have a 15qt pan, be patient)
-Coolant filter canister
-Oil filter
-Fuel filters

These things are great to get in kits. Bulletproof Diesel has everything you will need minus oil, coolant and the coolant filter in 3 kits; the Head Gasket Install Complete Kit, the Semi-Bulletproof Package and the Professional Package. They also offer the head gasket kit minus the ARPs if you already have them and just an oil cooler kit that comes with all of the seals and o-rings if you already have and upgraded EGR cooler or an EGR delete in addition to just a EGR cooler seal kit and EGR valve o-ring kit.


The tools:
For the most part, the tool requirements are pretty straight forward, modern metric. The caveat though is that it isn't “normal metric.” Whenever I work on a modern vehicle, it's a pretty safe bet that 8mm, 10mm, 12mm and 14mm will be the most used sockets/wrenches...NOT the 6.0L. Ford decided to say to hell with the system and throw in 11mm bolts, some 13mm and an occasional 15. These are the specific things that you can't do the job without. Not pictured here are the regular sockets and wrenches (because I didn't have room for the picture, basically if you have 8-18mm with deep and shallow sockets, you'll be good, oooo and a 5.5mm socket for the inner fender), screwdrivers, pliers, hoist and plastic pin pry bars. So here we go from the top.





-Rags
-Penetrating oil (50/50 mix of ATF and acetone is my all time favorite)
-WD-40 that I wiped on the bare surfaces and cylinders to prevent flash rust
-Brake cleaner for everything (I used about 10 cans, and I'm pretty sure my rocker boxes and oil cooler housing weren't even this clean from the factory)
-Cheater bar
-Big *** pry bar to counter the water pump pulley when taking the fan off
-Magnet on a stick is a LIFE SAVER
-Shorty Torx sockets
-Allen sockets are wonderful (that one is 3/16” I believe for the top of the ARPs)
-Extra ARP lube
-Rags
-Claw
-BIG breaker bar
-Razor blade
-Light with a magnet on the back
-Glow plug connector removal tool (got that idea from another member) take a butter knife, drill a .40” hole (13/32” bit) in it and then cut the end and grind a little so that it makes a U.
-O-ring pick
-Fuel line disconnect tool
-Sharpie
-Painter's tape if you have multiple aftermarket sensors that have the same connector
-Line wrenches...NEVER apply pressure to a fuel line fitting with a regular open end wrench, you'll round it off in a heartbeat
-Something to clean your gasket surfaces...preferably air powered, you'll thank me later
-3/8” to 1/2” drive adapter
-11/16” 12 POINT socket for the ARP cap nuts
-T60 Torx for the new stand pipes and dummy plugs (it's close enough to the 12mm? hex)
-Long reach Torx (T40 or T45, pretty sure it was the 45) to get down to the injector hold down (get a “brake tool” kit at Oh-Really's for like $15, look in the brake section and remember long Torx, you'll know it when you see it). Get some rags and brake cleaner while you're there
-Wire brush for cleaning the vanes and unison ring on the turbo
-BIG FUGGIN WRENCH for the fan nut
-1/4”, 3/8” and 1/2” ratchets with extensions
-U-joint (I couldn't get a position to do the up pipe bolts from the manifolds without it)
-Torque wrenches (80-210+ ft/lb, 10-100ft/lb at a minimum, can also add a 30-150in/lb for the smaller stuff)






-Shop vac with a long straw nozzle for cleaning the bolt holes (I made one out of the tube for an air compressor blow gun, an impact socket and a bunch of electrical tape). Make sure your shop vac can handle liquid, it's gonna get oil, brake cleaner, WD-40, coolant, all kinds of crap in there


And a few things that make life SO much better.





-Zip gun
-Did I mention rags?
-Mag trays
-Hairspray for reassembling the CAC pipes, helps prevent blow outs
-Head lift bracket, mine didn't come with the stand offs so I used the old intake gaskets, broke the excess off and used them to space off the bracket so that it wouldn't be tweaked by the rocker box

I have one of those little round finger ratchets but only used it once, I didn't see it useful enough to really recommend it. Your mileage may vary. I don't think I forgot anything but if I did and I remember, I'll make a note of it in future posts.

 

Chapter 4: Clean it

A garden hose with a jet nozzle will be do fine but if you have a small pressure washer keep the pressure down, too powerful an you risk the stream cutting things. Open the hood, grab your favorite degreaser and go to town, let it sit for a little while, then blast it. Pressure washer guys, make sure you keep it a couple feet away so that you don't force water into the connections. If you are having hard start issues and suspect your FICM, do your wash down first just in case that little gasket has an issue sealing, and let everything dry completely before you pop the screws. You get any water down in there, it's doneskies. If your neighbors will likely execute you for doing a wash down in your driveway, go to a car wash that has an engine degreaser option and clean it there, but if you have a FICM issue then you will need to wait a while after you get home so that the engine can cool off enough to do your voltage check. Starting with a remotely clean engine sure reduces risking leaves and other junk making their way where they shouldn't be. It also helps you narrow down any possible leaks when you get done.

 

Now we're starting to get somewhere fun

Chapter 5: Coolant Flush

You do not want the risk pumping any sediment, casting sand, gel chunks, etc. through your brand new oil cooler and clogging it up. So pump all of that crap into the one that you will be throwing away. Make sure that this is as thorough as possible, it is going to take you about 40 gallons of distilled water if you do both Restore and Restore+. Restore+ is the same as VC-9 but cheaper. The Restore helps rid the engine of silicates and the VC-9/Restore+ get rid of iron deposits and scale. DO NOT let these chemicals stay inside the engine for very long and make sure they are completely flushed. Save yourself some time and headache and remove the thermostat during the first drain so that you don't have wait for it to open with every step. Also, bite the bullet, make a mess (once) and install valves in place of the block drains, they make it much easier to do the flushes and get the chemicals out, draining the block with each flush means less flushes. There are many write ups about how to do a coolant flush, so I won't beat a dead horse. I will say that my full flushing process filled 9 Homer buckets and took all of about 3 hours total. I used high idle for about 15 minutes with each step, did the Restore+ first and only flushed once between the Restore+ and Restore and then just flushed until I only had about 3 gallons of distilled left for the top off after the rebuild. Wait to drain the last flush until you have the truck in the position that you will be doing the work, in your garage, barn, driveway, etc. If you choose to drive your rig with an empty cooling system then do so at your own risk, I don't like the idea of chancing an overheated cylinder wall.

 

Chapter 6: Bend her over

Once you scout out and decide on your ideal location to do work, it's time to get the truck into position and start getting down to business. Make sure that you choose a location that is comfortable to work in, preferably out of the elements, and where the truck will not be in the way as this is going to be its resting place for the entire process. Get it low. Round up a few jack stands, 4 to be exact, jack up the truck, pull the tires off and put the axles on the jack stands. I put mine on the lowest position which turned out lightly problematic trying to get the legs of the hoist in at the right angle to clear the front diff as well as the driver side steering knuckle, up one maybe 2 notches would have been better. I don't like doing a whole lot of work inside the engine bay of a stock height truck when it's on the tires, so I'm not about to do it on a lifted truck. I then laid one of my tires under the front bumper and used it as a platform until I got enough out of the way to climb inside and then used it as a step while climbing in/out. This is when you will drain the last flush out of the radiator and the oil if you choose. I did not drain the oil and you'll hear all about that coming up. Unless it's time to do a transmission change, don't bother pulling the plug. You will lose a little bit when you disconnect the cooler lines so have some rags ready, but it's negligible, less than half a quart is what my ZF6 pissed, 5R110 may have a bit more come out, I don't know.

 

Chapter 7: Time to strip

I took the hood off and HIGHLY recommend it, it's one less thing to bump your head on and having it off allows SO much more light down into the engine bay. You don't take the risk of ramming the engine hoist into it when removing/installing the heads either. I also took of the hinge struts because I didn't want to risk anything damaging them.

Get your passenger side inner fender out of the way. HAND TOOLS ONLY GUYS!!! There are a couple 5.5mm bolts holding it to the outer fender, 4 (I think) plastic push pins, 3 nuts for the vacuum reservoir then just push it in and up until the edge pops out from behind the fender, then down and out. Easy day.

Disconnect and remove the bat-trees. BAM, 2 more parts shelves, you're welcome. Make sure your windows are up if outside. Do not place them on concrete, it will kill them fast. Get a couple 2x4s that are 3' or so long to put them on.

Next it's time to get all the tubing out of the way. The easiest way I found was to loosen up the band clamp that is midway up the intake duct and take everything up stream out as one unit. Be mindful of the sensors. Next, pull the upper hose that goes into the turbo, followed by the intercooler pipes and the radiator hoses. Remove the degas bottle and tuck the large hoses off to the driver side and hook them so that they stay out of the way, the small hoses can be taken completely out.

Now let's get that fan out of there. No, you do not want to try this job with it in place and you sure as hell don't want to have to try pulling it once the belt is off. Take off the upper shroud that connects the main shroud to the radiator so that you have some room to wiggle the radiator out. There are 4 bolts, 2 that plug into the front of the intake manifold and 2 near the balancer. With these removed, you are able to pull the inner shroud forward enough to get to the fan nut. This is where the big pry bar and your big fuggin wrench come into play, it is normal thread so don't try twisting it toward the driver side. So much more room for activities.

Belt, tensioner and all of the idler pulleys are the next things to get out of the way as well as the wiring harness. You don't really need to label anything on the harness considering that the injector plugs are really the only things that can get mixed up, but even those are difficult because each one will only reach one spot. I tucked my harness down around the front of the engine.

 

Chapter 8: Stay organized.

Now that you're starting to build up your pile-o-parts, you need to have a system to keep your sanity. If you're a baggie builder, put that bag of bolts with the part that they go to. If you're a hole plugger, know that there will be times that you cannot put those bolts back in, make sure that you know exactly where those bolts are. You know better than anyone what works for you, whichever way works better for you, make sure that you keep the hardware with the parts. You can do both, I do, but make sure that you understand it so that you aren't freaking out when you pick up the part and there aren't bolts in the holes. Get yourself a ton of those aluminum baking pans, I got mine at Costco like 30 for $6.99. They work great for keeping parts together as well as keeping oil from running all over your bench/floor when you're taking things apart. I like to put things back exactly how I take them apart so I also use cardboard for a ton of things, pushrods, bolts for the oil rail, manifold bolts, valve cover bolts. The great part is you can take a sharpie and draw the rough shape of the part, then stab the bolts in where they go. This is a life saver when it comes to reinstalling the intake manifold and the valve covers so that you know where to put the bolts and where to put the studs.

Keep your tools together, there's nothing worse than finding out that you lost a tool somewhere in the engine. I'm not saying you have to put the wrench or socket back in the toolbox after every time you use it, but do a daily cleanup. When you are finishing up for the day, gather all of your tools, wipe them of oil and grease, put them away in the tool box, pick up any trash and parts wrappers from the day. One, it helps calm you down. Two, it's good practice. Three, it makes you less likely to try to push and get that other head done tonight. Four, it keeps your work area clean so you can see what's going on and where your stuff is, and you aren't tripping on anything.

With the majority of items, it is not critical which bolt goes where or which injector plugs what hole. I prefer to put it back together exactly how it came apart. With the exception of the head gaskets and FICM, the truck was running great so I made sure that #1 injector went back on #1 cylinder all of the push rods went back in their original holes, etc. You do not by any means have to do it this way but I like to. The cooking pans were the perfect size to have 4 injectors with their hold down sitting side by side, made it easy to differentiate the left bank from the right as well as determine #2 from # 8.

 

Chapter 9: Open up some room

Before you get too far in, you're going to want to get some things out of the way so that you have a little more room to work. First thing is the easiest, move the upper harness. Once the degas bottle is removed, just pull out the plastic pins, flip the plastic piece up and put a screwdriver down the cowl vent to hold it up and out of the way. Next thing is a bit more time consuming, you need to take half of the condenser housing for the A/C off. There are a handful of little metal washers that hold the heat shield on and then about 10 small screws (8mm I believe) and half of the cover for the canister. You won't be able to get the passenger valve cover off with it in place, let alone the head. This doesn't have to be done immediately, but must be done before you start working on getting that head ready to come out.


Chapter 10: Look at the order

You will see things that clearly have to come out in a specific order. Intake has to come out before the heads, turbo has to come out before the intake, oil/fuel filters have to come out before the turbo. If you still have an EGR valve, take it out before you pull the intake so that you can use the manifold to pry against with a couple bars. It's super easy, unbolt the valve and twist it so that the tabs are exposed, then get a bar on either side and apply equal pressure and it'll slip right out. I'm not going to walk you through step by step on taking things off, I will say try to pull things off as units. So don't take all of the lines off of the fuel filter housing, only take off what is necessary, I did loosen the fittings though so that the hard lines could move a little and not bind up.



Now once you get the turbo, intake, EGR, etc. out of the way, it's time to pull the oil cooler. STOP!

Trivia time, how much of the 15qts of oil are stored in the oil cooler housing?

The answer is ALL OF IT, at least it seems that way. Go get your shop vac and an asston of rags, it will make a MESS. It doesn't help that it fills to the top of the housing a couple inches above the gasket. Here is where those trays come in handy, they are the perfect size for the oil cooler components.



Chapter 11: Plug it

Now that you're starting to get more and more off of this engine, you're opening up more and more holes in this pig. SHOVE RAGS IN EVERYTHING!!! I once learned the hard way that if you have a hole that a bolt doesn't go in and you don't want a bolt in it, put a rag in it, spending 5 minutes stuffing all of the openings will save you hours trying to get whatever dropped into the intake port or water jacket.