I found today that I have an oil leak. I started my truck this morning and it kind of sputtered on like it didn't want to start. I drove maybe a half mile before it began to sputter out like I was out of fuel even though I had just under a half tank. When I pulled over I noticed that I had no engine oil, so I filled it back up and it still won't start, it will turnover though.

 

The injection system uses engine oil for hydraulic pressure. There is a line that goes to each head to supply it. If one of those lines blew, you aren't going to get it started until the line is replaced. If it's leaking elsewhere and the high pressure pump ran out of oil, it's going to take a pretty fair amount of cranking to get it to start. The oil rails in the heads will have air in them that needs to be forced out.

 

Will I flood the engine by continuing to crank

 

No. There's really no such thing as flooding a diesel by cranking it. Until the hydraulic pressure comes up to at least 500 psi, the injectors will not be fired. That's controlled by the PCM. Crank for 15-20 seconds, let the starter recover for a minute or two. Repeat that process; it could take upwards of 5 cycles to get it to start. If it doesn't start by about the tenth cycle, let us know.

 

Pull out the plug for the hpop reservoir. See if it has oil in it. You can fill the reservoir which should help to get it started. The low pressure oil pump has to push oil into that res so the high pressure oil pump can feed the injectors.

 

The battery died before I could start it, a friend of mine said it could possibly be water in the fuel, so I drained the water separator is what he called it and went to crank it and it wouldn't turn over so I am going to get a charge on the battery and try again. I got it to turnover a solid three or four times before it slowed and wouldn't turn

 

I live on the beach so the reasoning is that it has been raining off and on for the past few days and the temperature has been fluctuating between 70-100 degrees coupled with it sitting or being driven less than five miles a day for the past week or so