Please help. I'm completely confused. What coolant do I need?

I'm changing hoses, & t-stat, and finally adding a second coolant sensor so I can have a working gauge & no CEL.

I'm NOT changing to ELC. I only drive this thing a few thousand miles a year, and I expect frequent future coolant drains & refills (when the water pump fails, when the radiator leaks, etc). Also, I don't want to go through all the BS to completely flush my block. Its hard enough to get rid of a few gallons of antifreeze here, I don't want to try to recycle a whole kiddie pool of coolant.

My motor is a 99, but past the SN/date requiring silicates. The coolant drained was either green or gold (I'm colorblind-plus it had some pink/purple Fleet/diesel stuff to top it off once).

The Napa lacky wants to sell me regular green automotive coolant.

Low silicate, phosphate free, no SCA precharge required, OAT, HOAT, green, gold, pink, orange? WTF should I put in my truck? This is ridiculous.

I can't help with your question, but most coolants can be dumped down the drain. It's the recommended disposal out here. Might be worth talking to your sewer people to see if the municipal treatment can handle coolant.

That's the case for regular coolant. Not sure about your billion gallons of diesel weirdness.

Well when you figure it all out let me know. I'd like to do mine soonish (this fall or next spring).


On that note I need to finally do the 50cent mod. Finally got around to ohming out my glue plugs and as I suspected the front 2 on each side are not plugged in again. Thinking about just changing the gaskets and harness's but that's $300

Gunni, pm Brianut (he's not on here too much, rebuilding his house), he did a lot of cooling system work last year on his 7.3 so I think he knows what to use. If he doesn't reply to a pm I'll send you his ph #.

We do have a newish Tractor Supply Company (and an Oreilys) there. Ace is locally owned, and a pretty awesome hardware store for a small town. I try to do business with them. If they don't have what I need TSC will. I'll check with the city and see what they say.

According to everyone, Gooch is a coolant expert. He says HD ELC. Gold or green would be ok, but International says HD ELC is correct. Green or gold will cavitate more than ELC and pit/damage the block eventually. ELC has the cavitation inhibitors included and don't need tested or maintained. Anything pre 02/99 needs to use green or gold & maintain cavitation inhibitor levels. ELC will damage the orings in an early 99 motor, I reread the thread, and only the first flush would contain much coolant. After the first flush, with tap water, the 2nd & 3rd is just replacing tap water with distilled water, and shouldn't be very contaminated. Lots of info here.

http://www.thedieselstop.com/forums/f47 ... ns-163800/

I just bought the Ford valve covers from Dieselorings.com for about $200. I replaced mine with Dorman last year & installed Zoso's lightly used glow plugs. I had a few months of easy starts, but it got more difficult, and was never great. This spring, under 30* it wouldn't start unless plugged in. I ohmed things out and every plug ohmed out ok, but low .06, .05. I ordered new plugs, but when I got things apart this weekend, I think my problem was 2 glow plug wires were pinched between the gasket and the valve cover (squashed the wire & deformed the rubber o-ring on one side, just damaged a wire on the other side). After reading about the problems with the Dorman stuff, I decided to drop the extra money on the good stuff.

On mine its the good old green stuff. I went to Ford and bought the motorcraft stuff and it was priced about the same as the parts stores. The stuff from ford had the additive in it already.. Yours being a 99 it may not be the same as my 97, There were fairly serious changes to the cooling system with the body style change if I'm not mistaken.

The intercooler install begins. I welded up some brackets to hold it in place last night now I have to start putting this damn thing back together and fit my intercooler tubing


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I like the bungee. You should keep it.

I finally got off my butt and did the 50cent mod. Just as I figured the uvch was just about ready to all off again. Now it just needs to get cold to see if that helps the cold start.

I did finish my coolant flush & change to ELC, moved my PCM coolant sensor to its proper location under the a/c compressor, and installed the gauge coolant sensor. Turns out a very limited number of 2002 diesel Superduty & Excursions used a different sensor than most. Guess who has one. This guy! So I got to drain my new red coolant, pull my new gauge sensor, and install another gauge sensor. I'm guessing the wrong dash or gauge was installed on a batch of trucks, because the Motorcraft DY1144 sensor is not listed for my truck anywhere. Except a Ford TSB.

Also installed new valve cover gaskets & glow plugs. Not sure the plugs needed changed, but its nice knowing everything is new.

Cleaned up the improvised wiring to the alternator to make my 1999 motor work in my 2002 truck.

Hoping next weekend to maybe strip my roof & hood and repaint. The roof is peeling very bad, and I'm getting rust around the top of the windshield. I'll get a new windshield once its repainted.

Got the intercooler install wrapped up this weekend. I lost a couple pounds of boost with the larger volume of air to pressurize but it should be much better towing..

I took a few final photos but they came out crappy in the dark. I'll get some better ones in the daylight.

I feel bad about not having a photo so I share this one with you instead.
This is in honor of a friend whose Rubicon Kevin and I had to repair after he tried to fix it first


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While I was tearing into this I also added a more convenient plug for the block heater.


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That should work well. Now go tow something heavy and see what EGT's do. The marinco plug is nice to have.

At this point, I believe, my glow plug system should be in proper working order. With brand new glow plugs & valve cover gaskets, also the GPR was swapped with a 200 amp relay. I've also upgraded the starter to a gear reduction model. I'm not aware of anymore repairs I can make to make it start better in cold weather.

I bought the truck with 4 failed glow plugs. When I swapped the plugs last year, I managed to pinch 2 glow plug wires under the valve covers. So I have never had a proper working system. And this is my first diesel, so I don't know what to expect from a good system.

I know its been thrown around before, but what temps can I/should I expect the truck to start up in. I'm mostly worried about hunting season. I'm hunting 4th (11/11-11/15) so its going to be cold. Last year I hunted a very warm 2nd season, when the temps never dipped below 20*, maybe even 25*.

This morning it was 18*. I thought I'd start up the truck (not plugged in and hasn't run in 10 days, and fuel has no winter additive) and see what happens. It did start on the first (extended) try cranking the motor. It blew tons of black smoke, went into a sort of limp mode idle with no throttle response, and barely ran. Actually it died about 1-2 minutes after starting. I went back out to the truck & restarted it. This time it fired right up, no smoke, and idled up to normal.

I'm probably hunting from home this year, not camp, so it will be plugged in overnight. But wondering about a worst case scenario, if the truck sits for a long very cold, windy, day into evening/night. I really don't want to spend the night in it, or try to hike out of some of my hunting spots.

Mine has started at -15 after sitting 12+ hours at work. Just cranky and smokey.

you may also switch to a thinner oil during the cold months. I run rotella t6 5w-40 synthetic year round. I noticed a huge difference in the cold.

Don't be afraid to cycle the ignition a few times before you turn it over. I don't recall how long the glow plugs should stay on, but something like two minutes per key cycle? So perhaps if it's really cold, cycle the keys, wait 2 minutes, and repeat 2 or three times.

Black smoke seems odd. I seem to remember mine being white.

And if your EBV valve isn't working properly, that could be your lack of throttle response. It's supposed to close down until engine temps come up, but should open if you really get into the throttle regardless. You should notice more of a hissing noise in the exhaust at idle that normal if it's closed.

JD is correct. The glow plugs are on for 2 minutes unless the oil temp is above a set temp. So if you have to and your batteries are up to the task you can turn the key on for 2 minutes. Then cycle and repeat.

The price of rotella t6(blue jug) isn't horrible at 25-28 a gallon.

I have installed a LED that is on when the glow plugs are on (I think Rob showed me that on his truck) so I know they stay on for some time. If things get questionable, I'll let the glow plugs go longer or cycle it a couple times before firing. This morning I just cranked on it as soon as the "wait" light went out.

I got white smoke when cranking a cold engine that wasn't firing up because of bad glow plugs. The black stuff was coming out when the truck was running, but badly.

I used to run that rotella 5w40 in my WRX. Worth every penny.

I run Delo in mine. I replaced glow plugs last winter and my truck fires up fine even when its butt ass cold. At work, I park about 30 feet from the Poudre river and our building sits down in a low spot. Its not uncommon to see -20 on the thermometer there. I notice it can be a solid 10 degrees colder than it is at home less than 5 miles away. I have left the truck parked down there for 14-15 hours during the christmas season and so far it has fired up with very little effort in the worst conditions.