[gmonde]

philip: i work at a international school bus dealership(i hold several postions ,foreman,servicewriter,technical advisor),the 6.0 (vt365) in your ford is made by international for ford,with some minor changes for ford,these are the same engines that are optionend for our conventional school bus,these engines have crippled the international name,the concept of the variable gate turbo is a great idea but in the real world reliabuilty is the down fall,we have done oil coolers,egr coolers on 80% of the buses we have sold,any kind of rubber deteriation in the cooling system plugs the oil cooler and starves the egr cooler and when that happens the heat from the exhaust will melt the egr cooler an breach the cooling system causing the antifreeze to enter the exhaust (white smoke) this also will fill the engine thru the exhaust valves,injectors are another problem these will fail internaly and either will have a soild miss on that cylinder or may feed oil into the cylinder causing more blue smoke more than usual,the branch tube connection that supplys the second stage high presure oil system that can go up to 3000 psi(operates injectors) if that connection fails you are dead in the water,as far as head gaskets havent seen to many of them go these have plenty of head bolts and clamping force unless the gasket was deteroirating causing failure, when the engine runs right it lives up to is fame for power vs's cubic inch but reliabuilty suffers,i have 95 f350 with the power stoke 7.3 (t444e) this is also made by IH and this engine is most reliable but not as powerful as the 6.0(vt 365) hope this can shed some light on your power plant,if i could give some advise,push for the dealer to give you extra coverage on this and have them pay for it on there dime,play up the ford loyalty and how you may purchase another one but if problems continue this may make your decsion for you,ask to speak to some one over the servce mangers head,(trust me it works!!!)
if you have to pay for this out of your own pocket it will be costly hope this helps gmonde