Hi, All,

First I need to say a huge thank you to everyone on this forum. I had been shopping for a large diesel truck from a long time and this forum was incredibly helpful and contained answers to almost any question I had.

The truck I purchased was a 2004 Ford F-350 King Ranch, crew cab, short box, with the 6L powerstroke diesel. The truck has been a gem and I have absolutely fallen in love with it.
Today (three weeks after purchasing) there was a problem, driving back from the store, a 3 mile drive, the throttle response started to feel odd. I would describe it as laggy and unresponsive. This got worse as the drive went on, after a slight hill power went all together and the truck would not rev above about 2000 rpm. At this point I stopped and was greeted by large billows of white smoke from the exhaust pipe, which had a smell of oil and diesel. I turned it off and let it sit for a while and after 10 min tried it again. I was able to get some rpms up in neutral, however at higher RPM the engine had a distinct vibration, as if from a miss fire, and a lot of white smoke was still produced. Hoping I could limp the last mile home I tried drive but with no luck, with any load she seemed way too unhappy to continue. I left it and waked home. The odd part is at no point did the any warning light come on.

I am now trying to figure out the next move. I have been doing a lot or reading and it seems my problem is probably a blown injector. As discussed here https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...-no-power.html
If this is the case I have found some how to videos and feel with a little time I can probably replace the injector myself and save having to tow it to the shop. However, I am unsure of how to find which injector is blown and don’t really want to have to replace all of them.

At this point I am looking for advice, would you bite the bullet have the truck towed to the dealer and let them diagnose and repair it or should I attempt the injector replacement myself? Is there a way I can determine whether or not it is the injectors and if it is which one?
Thanks for all of your help
Regards Kyle

 

Hi Kyle, welcome to FTE!

I'm going to move this one down to the 6.0L forum, the folks down there will have a better time helping you out with this.

 

Thanks Tom!

 

Hi Kyle, Welcome. This is probably not to difficult of a fix. With a little diagnostic work and with the help of this forum you should be able to do this yourself. Do you have any Gauges or monitors with diagnostic capabilities on the truck?
Kevin

 

Its time consuming but it's not very hard to replace an injector. To start with is your engine light on? If it is then a decent code reader will give you a code and will lead you towards the right one. If the engine light isnt on then you'll need an actual scan tool to diagnose further. Some people unplug one injector at time to hunt it down but i've never been a fan of intensionally causing an open circuit on the FICM.

 

I'd also check all the CAC boots.

 

To locate the dead hole start the truck and allow to idle. Using a water squirt bottle, squirt a little water on the exhaust manifold port right near where it bolts to the head. If the cylinder is firing it will turn to steam and boil off. If the water stays wet on the manifold port then you found the dead cylinder. You could also use an Infered TEMP sensor gun but not everyone has one of those.

 

I had the truck towed into the local Ford dealer today, I figured it was best to only have to pay for the tow truck ones. They were able to diagnose the problem for me. The good news is it is not a blown injector. The EGR valve has failed and is not operating correctly, open when it should be closed. The dealer also said there is a large buildup of carbon on the intake manifold, which they said really needed to be cleaned. I was quoted $1900 all in. However, He said the manifold cleaning is something which is incredibly time consuming and suggested that I could undertake it myself. He also said I could do the EGR valve install myself if I wanted to save some labor costs. (I think I can manage to undo two 8mm bolts).

Now I am just waiting for the EGR Valve to come in (should be here Thursday) after which I can go down and install the new Valve and hopefully get the truck home where I can undertake manifold cleaning (a job which bills 9 labor hours).

The question I have now is while I am cleaning the manifold should I also replace the EGR Cooler? I have my eye on the bulletproof ones. Any tips on the best way to pull an EGR Valve?

 

Best way I found to pull egr valve is using a 12" and 18" pry bar, after taking the two bolts out and unplugging the wire, use a pry bar to spin it counter clockwise, then put a pry bar under each ear and work it back and forth gently to lift it up. I think some have wraped bailing wire through the holes and pulled up on it. Hope that makes sense.

 

This makes a lot of sense thanks. I did not know you were able to rotate it and was worried about not having something to pry on.

Thanks for your help

 

The truck is back from the shop. The new EGR valve came in and I was able to swap in the new one in a couple of minutes. The cost for the part was $500 + the two hours of labour it took the shop to diagnose the problem. I am not out of the wood just yet still need to clean out the intake manifold and possibly replace or delete EGR cooler (will do some more reading before deciding which root to take). But she is running again and not pumping out white smoke.

I think this problem could have been avoided by cleaning the EGR valve from time to time. My truck has 260,000km I have no idea if it has be done before. If your mileage is around there I would recommend pulling it out and having a look. The process of removal is simple. Also if you are looking to replace the EGR valve I would buy it online not from your dealer, I would have saved myself around $350 had I done that.

Here is the process I used to pull the EGR Valve.
The tools I used to pull the EGR valve where a 8mm socket with longer extinction and 11in pry bar with a short head.




The EGR valve is located on the top, center, of the engine beside the alternator. The top is black plastic and there a strand of wires running to it.





Undo the two 8mm bolts and then twist the EGR valve. This will move the screw tabs into a location where you will be able to get your pry bar under then. Take your time and you should be able to get it out. It has been said before but if this is not working you can run wire through the screw holes so you have something to pull on.

With it out give it a clean and probably replace the O-rings while you have it apart. Here is an image of the old one (cleaning has already taken place)



Feel free to tear my method apart, I am sure it is not perfect.

 

Do a delete and not worry about the value getting dirtied up

2006 F350 4X4 Mishi 200° tstat, IPR EGR delete/up-pipe

 

I believe that the white smoke might have been steam from a broken egr cooler. Much more difficult to do. You have to remove the turbo and intake manifold.

 

So since I never want to have to deal with this problem again I just put in my order for a upgraded EGR cooler from Bulletproof along with a new oil cooler. I sent a long time struggling over whether to get a upgraded air-to-oil cooler or just a replacement the stock one. In the end I went with just a new version of the stock cooler as I could not quite justify the extra $1800 for my use case.

I will be cleaning the turbo and replacing the seals as well when I have the engine apart. I will keep you updated along the way.

Again thanks for all your help

 

I noticed you have an aftermarket oil filter cap. Do yourself a favor and buy a new factory cap and only use MC or Racor oil/fuel filters!