GM I6 Diesel Impressions

[tookielee]

Slide tranny back a little, then pull a cover to access the belt?
Doesn't sound that bad, after 150K miles. A couple of months
ago, I had to pull a turbo off of the Ecoboost to change a 50 cent
O-ring.. day and a half job at home, dealer wanted 900.00 minimum
for the job. All of the manufacturers are making equipment that is
hard to access for repairs

 

[Hay Dude]

Slide tranny back a little, then pull a cover to access the belt?
Doesn't sound that bad, after 150K miles. A couple of months
ago, I had to pull a turbo off of the Ecoboost to change a 50 cent
O-ring.. day and a half job at home, dealer wanted 900.00 minimum
for the job. All of the manufacturers are making equipment that is
hard to access for repairs

Some of the Ford 6.4L Diesels will develop a drip of oil, that progressively gets worse. It’s an oil return line for the turbo.
Now you won’t believe this, but its about $1,000 to perform this repair for a tiny o ring fitting.
These engineers are truly numb to the repair costs of these trucks. THEY DONT CARE.

 

[tookielee]

Mine was the coolant return line fitting on the turbo

 

[WM75Guy]

Some of the Ford 6.4L Diesels will develop a drip of oil, that progressively gets worse. It’s an oil return line for the turbo.
Now you won’t believe this, but its about $1,000 to perform this repair for a tiny o ring fitting.
These engineers are truly numb to the repair costs of these trucks. THEY DONT CARE.

It is to generate service business, which is what keeps a dealer open. To change the left headlight bulb in my 08 the instructions starts with "Remove the grill to get at the bolts so you can remove the left fender". After that you can remove the headlight housing and change the bulb pretty easily. Whoever thought that was an OK process is definitely a company man.

 

[pmsmechanic]

It is to generate service business, which is what keeps a dealer open. To change the left headlight bulb in my 08 the instructions starts with "Remove the grill to get at the bolts so you can remove the left fender". After that you can remove the headlight housing and change the bulb pretty easily. Whoever thought that was an OK process is definitely a company man.

I was supposed to do the same thing on my friends 2017 F-150. I figured I'd be wise to watch a YouTube first. There was a short clip on just pulling the front half of the fender liner back and replacing the bulbs. Defiantly easier and faster to do than removing the grill.

 

[ruffdog]

Some of the Ford 6.4L Diesels will develop a drip of oil, that progressively gets worse. It’s an oil return line for the turbo.
Now you won’t believe this, but its about $1,000 to perform this repair for a tiny o ring fitting.
These engineers are truly numb to the repair costs of these trucks. THEY DONT CARE.

Some of those you have to pull the cab to get to.

 

[Hay Dude]

Some of those you have to pull the cab to get to.

The sad thing is, the 6.4L is a monster of an engine. It runs/drives like a gas big block, but has the torque of a diesel, of course. The sequential turbos are great, but not of the highest quality design for reliability. The rocker arms in the first year of the 6.4L were built too light and wore out, requiring replacement most times at about 150k miles.
It will go down in history with a bad reputation because of the way it was engineered into the truck for service and the awful DPF system shutting off a cylinder to regenerate and the related nonsense.

In other words, if the 6.4L was a pre ‘08 non DPF engine, it would be excellent. A real runner and worker.

 

[Snobdds]

The sad thing is, the 6.4L is a monster of an engine. It runs/drives like a gas big block, but has the torque of a diesel, of course. The sequential turbos are great, but not of the highest quality design for reliability. The rocker arms in the first year of the 6.4L were built too light and wore out, requiring replacement most times at about 150k miles.
It will go down in history with a bad reputation because of the way it was engineered into the truck for service and the awful DPF system shutting off a cylinder to regenerate and the related nonsense.

In other words, if the 6.4L was a pre ‘08 non DPF engine, it would be excellent. A real runner and worker.

I agree the 6.4 is the hotrod of diesel engines. The twin sequential turbos put a lot of air into the engine off idle and at WOT. It was a beast, but that **** thing was hard to work on because it was so shoehorned into the engine bay. Deleted and a few fixes to the top end of the engine, made them reliable. Plus it had that bombproof transmission behind it that just never failed.

I kinda wish ford would put a twin turbo on the 6.7, but the VGT is a pretty good design.

 

[Hay Dude]

I agree the 6.4 is the hotrod of diesel engines. The twin sequential turbos put a lot of air into the engine off idle and at WOT. It was a beast, but that **** thing was hard to work on because it was so shoehorned into the engine bay. Deleted and a few fixes to the top end of the engine, made them reliable. Plus it had that bombproof transmission behind it that just never failed.

I kinda wish ford would put a twin turbo on the 6.7, but the VGT is a pretty good design.

It kind of goes to show that light truck engineers are what failed the 6.4. Their DPF system design was junky and expensive to repair and replace. If they would have done their R&D more carefully, it would have been a good engine. Youre right, it was shoehorned into the truck without proper testing or consideration for those who had to work on them.
The rocker arm issue is the fault of International, but they did resolve it. They should have stepped up and replaced all the early rockers for free. The turbos are super high performance-almost hot rod in design, but not extremely durable, either. The oil cooler is another known issue. The number of coolers and the complexity of cooler lines is a problem. If they could have improved on the design, it could have been an awesome diesel.
Like you said, the Torqshift transmissions are a home run.

 

[Snobdds]

It kind of goes to show that light truck engineers are what failed the 6.4. Their DPF system design was junky and expensive to repair and replace. If they would have done their R&D more carefully, it would have been a good engine. Youre right, it was shoehorned into the truck without proper testing or consideration for those who had to work on them.
The rocker arm issue is the fault of International, but they did resolve it. They should have stepped up and replaced all the early rockers for free. The turbos are super high performance-almost hot rod in design, but not extremely durable, either. The oil cooler is another known issue. The number of coolers and the complexity of cooler lines is a problem. If they could have improved on the design, it could have been an awesome diesel.
Like you said, the Torqshift transmissions are a home run.

In Ford and International's defense, the emission part was not totally their fault. The EPA was putting so many rules in place it was hard to keep up with the technology needed to meet those rules. The DPF was a totally new concept in 2008 and nobody really knew how to add it in and make it work correctly. Every manufacture had issues early on. The EPA should have allowed for OEM's more time to get the technology right before they released it in the wild.