I've been daily driving my 99 F250 v10 4x4 Super Duty for almost 2 years now. I've racked it up to 200K miles in this time.
At first I noticed a burning oil smell when shutting off the truck, then in the cab when idling with the air on. It gets better in the summer and worse in the winter. Oil leaks out from just above the starter from the head gasket on the back corner of the engine, runs down the block and starter and lands on the Y pipe. Yes I am sure it is not the valve cover gasket, I even used leak dye to be sure. It does not leak bad enough to ever drip just to stink.
From what I can tell, this is a somewhat common issue on the 5.4/6.8 modular platform. Has anyone else experienced this and found any fix besides doing the gaskets themselves? I'm not really looking to dump 5K into a head gasket when it isn't blown besides the very back corner. I've had people recommend stop leak to me but I didn't think it would do anything as the head gaskets aren't rubber?
Thank You
Saab had a similar problem in the 1990s with their 2.3L engine. One of the corner head bolts would tend to loosen over time creating an external oil leak in that spot though the head gasket itself was not damaged. The factory TSB called for re-torquing or replacing the cylinder head bolts.
I don't know if this would apply to those Ford engines but it's something you could look into.
