to those with a 6.2l gas ford super duty

[chrisdvorak]

had a catastrophic engine failure in my 15 f350 6.2l truck the other day. started misfiring on one cylinder while on the highway and within a minute there were 3 holes in the block. Valve spring on cylinder #4 broke, shook the keepers off and dropped the valve into the piston. A shame as the engine had 80k miles and looked beautiful inside would have easily gone another few hundred thousand miles. after a new engine its back on the road but turns out the old engine also took out the catalytic converters so they will be replaced next... all because of a 6$ valve spring that was hardened just a little too much, thanks ford! the last pic is what I found with intake removed, a chunk of piston and the piston pin laying in the valley!

 

[Midniteoyl]

Ouch

 

[Redlands Okie]

Quite the expensive mess.

 

[nikerret]

Wow. That sucks. Can you share what kind of use and maintenance the truck has seen (I don’t think it matters, just curious)? Also, would you mind going into some detail on how the new engine install went? Time, money, unforeseen issues, etc.

These engines are pretty well known to be very good. It’s uncommon to see one screw up, but if a 6.2L has issues, it’s usually a valve spring or a cat with valve springs being the most common. Not sure if they got some bad batches of springs, or what. Not very many lose the whole engine, though.

 

[chrisdvorak]

no issues with the truck until this happened, synthetic oil and ford filters since new every 5k and never pulled a trailer over 8k lbs install wasn't too bad about 2 days labor and a week waiting for parts to come in. left AC lines intact so I didn't have to recharge system also ended up changing torque converter seal while engine was out. certainly not a fun job but not terrible either. total cost with engine and everything else that got replaced will end up around 8k in parts. going to run it a bit to see if the cats will clear themselves out but I don't have much hope...

 

[deezler]

Dayumn. Thanks for sharing. Would you care to assess your quality of maintenance on this engine over those 80k? IE, do you feel like you did all oil changes on time, etc.

Edit: I didn't read the whole thread first, my bad.

 

[nikerret]

no issues with the truck until this happened, synthetic oil and ford filters since new every 5k and never pulled a trailer over 8k lbs

Dayumn. Thanks for sharing. Would you care to assess your quality of maintenance on this engine over those 80k? IE, do you feel like you did all oil changes on time, etc.

@deezler, did you see the post just before yours? He touched on the oil changes.

 

[TractorGuy]

I considered buying one of these with a tapping noise. It would have been a steal if it could be fixed with valve springs. I couldn't get past the cost of the gamble if I lost.

I had a low mileage 2003 Z06 Corvette that reportedly had valve spring issues. I didn't read about it until a few days after purchase. These had reported failures as low as 30,000 miles. I parked it until I installed a new set of springs.

 

[deezler]

@deezler, did you see the post just before yours? He touched on the oil changes.

Oops, shouldn't post before coffee lol. thanks.

 

[TractorTYMe]

I'm not a Ford guy, there more I research Ford diesels and gas, the more engine problems I encounter. I'll stick to my old LS type pushrod GM engines. They work.