The reason I was thinking I should do a good flush before replacing was to get all of the gunk out of the system that I could before putting on a new oil cooler and EGR. I was thinking I would install the filter, check it in 1,000 miles and keep checking it until it seemed pretty clean, then do the flush and run with a filter as long as my deltas were okay, and when they started to rise a bit, then have the new stuff installed. Does that make sense, or am I looking at it wrong? I figured after the flush the filter might catch some more stuff that was potentially broken free when doing the flush, though I know that most of that will probably come out with the flush water.

Any thoughts or advice on the best way to proceed would be genuinely appreciated.

 

Your plan sounds good just like that. I just thought you were under the impression the coolant filter and flush might fix deltas that were already going out of spec. It does, just for a short time usually. I would do just as you're planning. Do the flush first. Then add the filter, then run it like that and see where your temps end up. Doing the oil cooler shortly after isn't a bad idea. You may even want to run on DI water for a few trips and flush it out a couple more times, just to make sure. Hopefully your filter will catch any debris from the install.

 

Thanks Mdub. I just talked with a shop that 2-Stroker recommended in Oregon. I think I am going to have them do an EGR delete, a new OEM cooler, and the ARP head studs. They said it saves quite a bit of labor on the EGR and cooler when the cab is off for the headstuds, so I might as well do those while it is at the shop. Hopefully I'll get at least another 100k or more out of the next cooler. If we start having diesel emissions testing I will have to have them put a bulletproof EGR cooler on.

ON EDIT:

The Sinister coolant bypass was just delivered by UPS. I was thinking about putting that on prior to my flush to start getting some of the sand and gunk out of the system, and then closing the ball valves when I do the flush so I'm not running everything through there. Does that make sense, or should I wait until after the flush to install it?

 

Just keep in mind the whole problem with the sinister coolant filter is that it is filtering the coolant AFTER it passes through the Oil cooler and and the EGr cooler so I would do the flush the best you can before the install, you want to get most of the sand out before you put the new oil cooler on or you will be clogging that up too, the internal passages of the oil cooler get sandblasted and can cause a rupture. If you want to see how much stuff is in the coolant you can take the pisser tube off the intake and add a longer hose to reach the floor and put it into a bucket, we would run the truck and let it fill with about a gallon of water then add it back into the degas bottle through a funnel with a shammie in it as a filter, we got about a 1/8 cup of sand out of my sister's truck. just have 2 buckets and keep rotating, we added 1 gallon of water to the mix so truck wouldn't ever be low on coolant while we were doing this. we ran about 25 gallons through it. when you put the new cooler on it flush it again because the old cooler was probably keeping some of the bigger stuff from making it through the narrowed passages.

 

I should be okay mounting and using the Sinister filter prior to my flush though, right? I figured it might get some of the gunk out of the system prior to the flush, and then when I do the flush I'll close the ball valves on the sinister during the flush, and after the flush and refill I will open the ball valves and run it for a while prior to the installation of the new cooler so that it can get any additional stuff broke loose during the flush.

 

Yeah, that will work, anything to help remove particles is a good thing, I would have a couple of filters ready, you can get them for $10, It is just a Wix filter, 4909 I think, While doilg the flush I would have it hooked up as an inline filter instead of a bypass filter so you filter all the coolant that passes through the hose instead of a small portion of it, wouldn't leave it like that full time but while doing the flush it would help out alot.

 

How would I hook up the filter as an inline filter? It looks to me like the inlet and outlet are too small on the filter head to handle the full volume of coolant. I was thinking about closing the ball valves during the flush, do you think it would be better to leave it functioning during the flush? I have a couple of extra filters I ordered with the kit.

Thanks for the help. Please keep it coming. I want to do this right.

 

Try that trick using the buckets, saves those $10 filters for when you are driving, if not leave the valves on when doing the flush, you want to get all you can while doing a flush and not all the junk will come out of the radiator. I don't have a coolant filter so not real sure of the sizes of fittings, but basically you don't use the Ts, you go from the pisser tube on top of manifold to coolant filter then from coolant filter to degass bottle, the only reason they do it as a bypass is in case the coolant filter gets clogged it won't stop the coolant flow, it will just go right to the degass bottle.Inline filter is alot more efficient at getting the debri but would have to be maintained religously.

 

Have you tried that Bob? That filter is NOT designed to filter that amount of coolant, it will just tear the filter apart.

The reason they do it this way is because there probably isn't a filter in the world designed to handle that amount of coolant flow and still filter, or at least it wouldn't fit under the hood of the truck. Same thing with our oil filters. If anyone has ever heard of the "degranged" truck with the 6.0, you'd know that probably $20-$30k went down the tubes on a 6.0 because the wrong oil filter was used, it was a filter meant for bypass systems and was being used as a full filter. It blew the media apart and sent crap all over in the system. Trashed the motor.

Now maybe I'm wrong, but the info to figure it out should be all over the net. Figure out what the 6.0 flows coolant wise. Then get the filter specs, see what it's rated at for flow. I'm not even going to bother wasting my time because I can almost guarantee any filter that is small enough to fit on that kit is NOT going to be a full flow design. They specifically make them this way so they can filter finer. You can't filter finer and still maintain full flow, thus the bypass.

 

That makes a lot of sense. I was just looking at the filter head and there is no way it could pass the full flow, and I have no doubt that you're right that the filter couldn't take the full flow.