Two weeks ago I replaced all my glow plugs (from dealer) and picked up a 109 GPR and put it in. Valve cover gaskets are almost brand new. I just got the truck back a month ago from the shop and had two injectors replaced. The rest appear to be the originals and two remans which tested out just fine at the shop. Truck has zero blowby on 114k.

Well CO got somewhat cold today around 20. Had a hard time getting it started....

Yesterday evening when starting it at about 35 degrees it smoked white for quite a while at idle. Once I took off it cleared right up but blew quite a bit of white at first. Normally I'll let it idle for a few minutes before taking off. I do notice that at first it feels like one of the injectors is not firing...runs a little off of perfect and when the engine temps come up a little, it frees up, or unsticks and we are running like normal. The truck has done this on first startup for the day since I have bought it.

My neighbor has an 01 and every morning he starts it up and the truck runs and fires like it does when its hot..... I want to get to that point with this one.... What should I look at next?

Sort of disappointed after doing the relay, plugs, and gasket and still having starting issues, even when I let the plugs cycle..... The warm weather has fooled me a bit untill today when I noticed it was quite apparrent. I do not have any issues when the evenings are warm (40+) except for the fact that injector seems to be sticking for a short while.... maybe a couple of miles or so.


I have read through the entire sticky on here regarding this issue and figured I have taken care of the basics to get it starting/running in the cold correctly. I have dropped over 5k in this thing since I bought it and really would like it to behaving a little bit better .


Right now I will say I am a little jealous of my bosses duramax that would fire right up without a block heater all winter up in the mountains at -5 to -20....


Thanks for the help guys.... this forum has taught me a ton!

 

suggestions???

 

Have you checked the glow plug system to make sure it's actually working the way it should be?

If so, then the next thing to address would be injectors.
If you had to have 2 replaced already, there's no reason the other 6 don't need replaced (or rather, overhauled).
We rarely sell just 1 or 2 injectors. We do complete sets because if 1 has an issue the others are not far behind.

And there are many different quality reman injectors out there. I HATE getting reman injectors in the shop. Most of the time they are not done properly and are the reason the truck doesn't run right in the first place.

Just some things to think about.

 

The white smoke sounds like the GP's aren't wirking.

The injectors that are sticking is most likely worn poppet valve which means time for the to be rebuilt/replaced

 

What exatly do you mean by checking if it is working properly? How would I go about doing this?

I totally agree on the injector issue. I will never put remans in the truck... its what was in it already and I really do not have the cash to do 6 more at the moment. I'm planning on taking care of that mid to late summer if they hold out that long. The only ones going in the truck are factory injectors.....

Looking back on it I should have done all 8 at once and left the chip and gauges till later.

Once again mind explaining checking the glow plug system? I know the GPR is drawing current... I can hear it, and see the VoltMeter drop decently when the key is switched on. Dash light stays on for quite a long time when really cold, I usually cycle them twice if below 30. Not sure what else to look for. I figured putting 8 brand new plugs in I would not have to mess with ohming out the new ones again.

 

Jim can take of your injectors for around what you payed for two good remans

 

And when the times comes I will be giving him a call.... I did not know about him untill I got on here. 2 injectors from ford ran 360 a piece...if not more after tax. I will just want 6 Alliant factory injectors...not really looking to hop anything up.... bought this truck to tow heavy and safely with longevity

 

Jim does stock rebuilds

 

I saw that.... I am a little gun shy with rebuilds and want to buy a set of injectors that are not going to crap out on me in a year or unexpectedly. I am not saying anything against his work, but since I am paying for labor on injectors I would like to put them in and not have to mess with them for a 100k. 6 of the 8 in the truck were factory originals lasting 115k..... having to drop 3k on a set of injectors is not something I want to do annually or biannually. When it comes to such a high dollar item I figured the most reliable part would be the factory injectors originally used...and in this case the Alliants or injectors directly from ford seem to be the best bet. I am open to suggestions without a sales pitch though.


Hope that does come off the wrong way but I have sunk a lot of money into the truck. A lot more than I expected to get it running right, and now I'm back to where I was a month ago with injectors... like i said should have done all 8 but 360 a pop was waaaay to much for me at the time.

I do most of my own labor on the truck and have done everything up to this point other than the injectors and needed a bit of help with the clutch. After reading all the horror stories and not having a complete understanding of doing injectors I will go ahead and pay my trusted mechanic to do the work.

 

I think Jim sells new ones.

 

You can change the injectors yourself if you did all the other stuff already. It's not that hard. You probably do have a good mechanic, but we can guide you through it and save you some bucks.

 

I just got stage 1's by Rosewood...$1350 for the premium build...search this site and others for his reputation...I did...many folk run his sticks...his rep is the number of people using his product...)

 

Hey, if you want to go new, then go new!
I try to tell everyone that you get what you pay for.
There's a big difference between Overhauled, Rebuilt, and New.
I sell maybe 10 sets of NEW injectors a year, and we do many hundreds of rebuilt sets a year, but it's your $$$ and we'll do whatever you want.

As for the glow plugs, use a test light on the feed to the gp's, turn the key on and time how long it takes for the gp's to go off.
You could use the volt meter on the dash, too, but a light right at the source is fool proof.

EDIT: If you got 'new' injectors from Ford they are Remans. And if you paid $360 each for remans, I sell brand new ones for about 2/3 of that!

 

I have read quite a bit about doing them myself...the entire hydrolocking issue has me a bit nervous.... I am more than confident with my mechanical ability, however I have not worked on diesels before and this truck has been a bit of a learning experience already.

I took a look around and I will be getting new ones from him


Since you are the injector man, what is the big difference you see between rebuilds and new injectors? Are they worth the cost difference? Will rebuilds last as long as fresh new injectors?

When I say new I mean non remans. My mechanic told me that the ones he gets are not rebuilds or remans and are brand new. I'm actually going to give him a call today about this issue as well. I noticed when doing the glow plugs that I only could find 1 new injector and the other one that looked like it had been put in was stamped reman on the cover. So hopefully I was not close enough and missed the second one, but the hard ware on the caps of the two injectors looked a lot newer than the other 6, one being a new one and one stamped reman.


Just an update.... got down to around 20 again last night. Turned the key on and let them warm up for about 30 seconds. Truck fired right up. Let it idle for about 5 minutes when I headed back in for my coffee and when I came out it was still blowing out a ton of white smoke. It smells like diesel and does not smell like oil. My mechanic assured me the motor has almost factory spec compression on all 8 and better than he has seen on a 7.3 its time. I guess I need to get a video of it to better show the volume of white smoke. I will try tomorrow morning since it will be below 30 again.

When it 40 + its not as prevalent, and when above 50 usually disapates in a minute. If its after the truck has been ran at any point in the day there is no smoke and no sticking of injectors.

On the bright side this morning when I drove off I noticed the engine did not have that stuck injector feeling....

Here are 2 cases I compare to:

I can compare this to my bosses two trucks... #1 truck starts up and runs great no matter the temperature. Blows a little white on startup and clears up instantly. However when it idles for 15-20 minutes and he leaves with the trailer it will blow quite a bit of white which is oil since the rings are going bad. But on start up it runs great and idles like it does when its hot.

#2 The other truck acts like mine. The idle is rough even after all new plugs. needs to idle almost 10-15 minutes till the temp comes up and then the idle smooths out. Blows the same amount of white smoke as mine on startup and has that sticky injector feeling like a couple are not firing correctly and when it warms up they unstick and go. Does not blow white at all when he leaves with a trailer...rings are still good in the truck and a compression test proved it as well. He had all new injectors done 2 years ago.

Both trucks are towing 100% of the time yet have less than 15k in the last 2 years.


I just compare mine to the second truck. Has the same symptoms yet not as drastic but it does bug me after taking it into the shop and replacing plugs and gpr it still smokes.... I will test the system with a light tonight and see what the results are. I really do feel the glow plug system is working correctly however the injectors may just be worn out since 4 of them appeared to be the ones that it came with from the factory.

 

I do have a chip on it... not sure if that would effect it... however I always start it in the stock tune and do not flip it over untill I am at running temp, which usually is after driving through town and after I have been on the high way a mile or so.