???? Oil cooler...eot & ect?? I'm not up on all these abbrivations...please explain. delta 15* ??

Yes, a slight lose of coolant.

TIA

JamieD

 

Oil cooler is what regulates the temps between oil and coolant on this truck. When we talk about a 15* delta, that is referring to a 15 degree difference or more in the two temps. So if oil temp is 190 and coolant is 220, your oil cooler is starting to clog. Typically this is what leads to ruptured EGR coolers and blown headgaskets. Often times people will run into an issue similar to yours and figure out the EGR cooler is ruptured, but only replace that. Then they have the same problem in 10k miles again or less, cause they didn't fix the root cause, the oil cooler.

I would do a full egr delete (this removes the egr cooler, and the valve, and replaces the stock up-pipe with a scoop to feed the egr cooler, with a solid pipe), and rebuild the oil cooler.

An oil cooler rebuild kit is ~ $235, and you can get an EGR delete kit for ~$150 or so on ebay.

This problem is only going to get worse the more you drive it and it could potentially hydrolock the motor, this needs to be taken care of sooner rather than later.

 

You guys have been very helpful...we will look into and most likely do the EGR delete kit. The oil cooler might be beyond our skill level. I really hate the thought of having to take this truck into a "shop" to be fixed...I can see $$$$ just flying right out of my wallet...but if it has to be done, then so be it. And finding a decent shop in our little neck of the woods could be hard. Might have to haul the truck to Spokane. I'm guessing a dealer won't do a EGR delete? They would want to replace the EGR cooler...right?

Again many thanks for all your help and we will let you know how things go. All this with this 2004 is making me look at our 1986 with different "eyes"...over 200,000 on it and it's still running.

JamieD

ETA
OK..hubby just started the truck and it's running with NO white smoke...why does this come and go?

 

It will smoke when it gets warm and then egr valve opens, it has to be up to temp first

 

The EGR delete is time consuming the first time around, but actually not complex to do. The hardest part is figuring out how to twist your body around to get your hands into certain places. Once you've dug in for the EGR delete, just do the oil cooler at the same time, you're 90% of the way there as far as removing parts.

 

Well you could also have oil coming through too, maybe check your exhaust tailpipe, see if any coolant or wetness is coming from there?