6.4L Powerstroke Mishimoto Radiator and Intercooler Install…

TRANSCRIPT OF VIDEO:
You remember from previous videos, we like to take a tote, cut it, and put it underneath the truck. This helps keep your floor clean so if you go under the truck, you are not laying in puddles of oil and antifreeze.

First, disconnect the batteries. There are a few clips that hold the hot wire that goes across. Pop them loose and get it all out of the way. Using a magnetic tray is helpful. If there is any metal in your cooling system, you will find it. Do it the right way – use the clip tool and don’t break the clips.

We have the headlight wire out of the way. This is not a factory thing. I have those HID bulbs that everybody hates in oncoming traffic. They sure do help when it is rainy. The intercooler is relatively simple because it sits right out front. You have to get the lower intercooler boot out. This is the cooler that is used for the fuel system. It is actually its own self cooling system with its own electric pump and radiator cap. Sometimes it makes a whirring noise down there when they go bad and make a hell of a racket. It goes through its own heat exchanger to keep the fuel its own specific temperature. You separate these two. Be sure not to mess this one up. The intercooler comes out relatively easy.

This truck has a bunch of coolers on it – power steering cooler, great big transmission cooler, above it is the AC condenser. There are 6 coolers. You do not want to run into the back of someone with one of these trucks. There is $3,000 worth of coolers on the front of this truck.  Let this cooler turn around and hang down. We don’t have to open that system up just politely set it out of the way. Joe has put a bunch of these radiators in. These 6.4L have been quite a challenge and Joe has gotten very good at it.

You have to get the hood release latch out of the way. Make sure you put all your nuts and bolts in your magnetic holders and make sure you keep up with that stuff. You have to actually use a hand ratchet with a 10 mm to get that lower one. There is no way to get in there with air tools. Unhook your 4×4 switch up here. Make sure you don’t mess up these vacuum lines on your 4×4 or your vents on your dash won’t work. The vacuum pump will run until it blows up. This is the vacuum line that goes over to your driver’s side 4×4. It goes all the way from there down to the hubs. There is plenty of pressure in there. Your vacuum pump sits over here too. There is a coolant hose that goes across the top.

Now that the coolant line is out of the way, we can worm the – look how that thing is crushed down. That has got to restrict the flow tremendously. Wow, look at that – that’s amazing. Now we are going to get this fan shroud, power steering reservoir, upper hose, and power train reservoir pulled loose. This is the screw that everyone forgets right here underneath the power steering reservoir. You can break the fan shroud. You got to get this one out of here.

Mikey, why do you think that the upper core support that comes stock on these things is magnesium? It is the same way on a 6.7? I have no idea other than the weight factor. I can’t imagine that it would be that big of a deal. It is an 8,000 lb truck, what is an extra 20 lbs. I would like for someone to explain to me why this is magnesium. And it is the same way all the through until the 2017s, it is a magnesium piece. I remember seeing that when I was at SEMA.

On the back of the radiator, there are the lower fan shroud bolts on both sides that takes the lower fan shroud loose. This is where it starts to get a little messy. You have to take the transmission cooler loose.

The transmission fluid in a 6.4 comes up from the radiator, through the radiator, back down through here, cooled again in the transmission cooler, drops out here and goes back to the transmission. So it is double cooled. It gets an initial cooling from the radiator itself. It will match the temperature of the engine and then it cools it even further. There are many things that go wrong with a 6.4, but they really outdid themselves getting the cooling systems straight on this truck. They knew this engine would make a lot of heat, especially with towing conditions and all the emission controls that are saddled with this engine. Sometimes these hoses can be a bit stubborn. You don’t want to take a pair of pliers and beat on them. You will ruin them.

We didn’t evacuate the AC. We are going to lay this thing off to the side. If you are over 100,000 miles, it is time to service the AC. Check the orifice tube. It is probably a good time to evacuate it. We didn’t do that so we are just going to lay it out of the way using a piece of good cardboard.

We have the lower hose and the fan shroud out of the way, get the lower radiator hose. This radiator has been leaking for a while since winter. I ran with a cap loose. If you take a look at the mounting rubbers, the Mishimoto ones are actually thicker. They seem to be a little firmer than the original material but it is a little thicker. Maybe they give a little more room to take up the flex. We are going to install two new ones on our brand new generation two radiator. When you install these, there is a tab to make sure you don’t screw up putting them in the wrong way and that they stay in there. Stab it in there and make sure the tabs line up in the correct spot.

If you have older hoses, now would be a good time to change them out. There is a difference between an old hose and the new hoses. You see the hose has a white end on it; the original design had a black end. The original design had a single o-ring seal. The updated design with the white end has a double o-ring seal at that end. This eliminated a common leak problem at the thermostat outlet. If you have a hose that has a black end at the thermostat end, now would be a good time to go a little further and change out your upper hose and your thermostat. Thermostats are good for about 100-150K miles of regular usage on these trucks. A very common place for these trucks to leak coolant is from this spot. Now is the time to do it when you are torn down to this point. Mine has already been updated.

The lower hose goes from here all the way around to the other side. It is your lower hose that attaches over here on the driver’s side. If it is black on this end, it is time to update that hose also – now is the time to do it.  Now is your chance to replace the fan belt and the tensioners that are common to fail. This fan has to be tested with IDS (Ford Integrated Diagnostic System). It is an expensive system, but I don’t know any other system that will work for this. It is a great tool.

With the new radiator sitting in there, worm the AC condenser back around. Take your time, don’t tear up anything. It is too bad you cover up that beautiful brand new radiator with some old ugly thing. I like to see my pretty shiny things. Brand new chrome plated screws from Mishimoto. Now it is time to set the transmission cooler in there. It actually slides up into those tabs. We are putting a new one in there that doesn’t have quite all the twists and bends in it but it slides back in the same spot.

The kit comes with new boots and new clamps. I strongly suggest that you install the new clamps with the boots. These boots are interesting. They have a lifetime warranty and also have this very smooth plastic interior that stiffens them up. Boots are bad about failing. The heat and pressure and the oil, the oil actually pushes through the boot itself. Mishimoto boots have a lifetime warranty and don’t fail because of the coating inside of them. Even if you don’t do anything else with the intercooler and you keep your old stock intercooler, I strongly suggest the boot kit for the 6.4. Those big turbos make a lot of boost and a lot of pressure in this engine. Huge amounts of boost are achievable with this turbo charger system so these upgraded boots in here is a big deal.

Once you have your upper pipe in, leave this clamp loose, and don’t tighten it. Now we can wrestle in the fan shroud. One thing that is interesting to note about this fan shroud install is that Mishimoto supplies these screws to replace the long ones. If you put the long one in here, it will go through and poke a hole in the top of the radiator which is really going to mess your day up. You would have to take it out and find somebody to weld the hole that you just put in it. Use the bolts that come with the radiator. I would suggest that you find a flat washer if the top of your fan shroud is messed up like mine is because it has been in and out several times. I have seen several of them come in with these holes poked in them because folks weren’t paying attention to what they were doing.

Now we have our fan shroud in and the upper fan shroud is secured. It is time to move on to the power steering fluid reservoir. Install the factory rubbers back on the ends of the radiator. Set the upper coolant hose right across the back of the top of the fan shroud. And time to install the upper core support. This thing is steel. It is a good bit heavier than the magnesium one they had on there. We are going to leave the shrouds inside here. We figured it is probably going to help with vibration and noise. When you are sliding these boots on and fighting all of this together, don’t put any grease on these parts where the intercool boots go. It is under boost and you don’t want to make any lubrication for this thing to pop off. You have to put them on dry. It is a bit of a fight to get these things to go on, but in the end you will be grateful because they won’t pop off.

This is what final installation looks like. It’s a nice looking set up. It is tightly packed with a lot of things stuffed inside this truck but all the Mishimoto parts fit absolutely perfectly. It is extremely well engineered and absolutely perfect in how they fit. It just works fantastic but the fit and finish can’t be beat. It’s as good as or better than factory. The performance is really quite amazing. ~Bill Hewitt