I have a 7.3 idi building pressure in radiator. Got it tore down head gaskets were thin and fell apart in our hands with cracks essentially. Cylinders look clean a little bit of piston ridge. Truck ran strong no mixing fluids. Hard to start but also found out tearing it down it had a mix of champion and auto lite glow plugs.. My uncle has done engine work for years and says even if it's cavitation bars leaks would fix that right up.

 

nope. if the cylinder walls are cavitated the only thing that will fix them is a sleeve. cavitation is coolant in the cylinders, not pressurized coolant system. that is head gaskets or cracked heads.
i woul have the heads magnafluxed to look for cracks, and put new head gaskets on if the heads are good.

and make sure you only use motorcraft ZD-9 glow plugs when you put it back together.

 

I've always used beru on my 6.9 I was always told they were best.
Are fel pro a good gasket? Also is the metal piece under intake part of the gasket?
Is a new starter something I should go ahead and do? Somebody mentioned I think DB electric or something as having a great one. Mine is Ok definitely not like a cummins as some have described.

 

i had a DB starter in my 88. it only lasted a year and left me stranded in a fuel station. started up fine in the morning, 3 hours later i shut it off to fuel up and deader than a hammer against a steel block.
i had one that was rebuilt by a local shop on the shelf at home, and put that in 6 years ago.

 

Clean them heads up good and look for obvious cracks before magnaflux. Might save some change if you see some. Didnt clean mine and there were several you could see with naked eye without magnaflux.

 

It is most likely not cavitation then?

 

If you got the heada off look at the cylinder walls good. Mainly back drivers side from what ive read.

 

every cavitated engine i saw (all two of then in 30 years), and everyone i have heard of suffering from cavitation hydrolocked.
if your engine ran good but has a pressurized coolant system with hydrocarbons, it is head gaskets not cavitation.

 

Cavitation of number 8 cylinder, caused white oil and burning white, also hydrolocked the engine if it sat for a bit.

 

Oh, and Motorcraft glow plugs are Beru.

 

It looks pretty clean probably has 161 thousand I doubt 261 it just looks to clean. It's a farm truck longest it has ever sat was 2 weeks it turned over fine and fired up in 7-8 seconds of cranking. It was originally an ambulance so maintenence should have been good. I'm putting the motor in a f250 so I have 4x4. It had regular antifreeze but I was told as long as you change it every 2 years it won't become acidic.

 

you need sca's in the coolant no matter how old or new the coolant is.

 

a good hydrocarbon sniffer can help in diagnosing coolant related problems. if you do a pressure test of the cooling system with glows removed then crank it could still be a head gasket if coolant leaks into a cylinder you wont know for sure till you take it apart.. stop leak is never the right tool...

 

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like Tom said above,you need to properly maintain the SCA levels (checking with a test strip every other oil change is a good rule of thumb) and you must use a low silicate coolant.

 

Being acidic isn't the problem, but can certainly add to the problem no doubt. Cavitation is when tiny pinholes are developed in the bore of an engine. This is apparent in all engines, but more so in diesels, due to a higher compression. When the piston fires on it's powerstroke, it actually flexes the wall, causing a low pressure zone right outside the the bore. When this area drops below the vapor pressure point, a very small vapor bubble is created. As the low pressure zone goes back to a high pressure zone, the bubble "collapses"... which in turn creates little pin holes in the bore. If not dealt with, it will eventually eat all the way through the bore, into the combustion chamber. The 7.3 is a bored out 6.9, so the walls are thin to begin with. Add in the fact that the compression is VERY high in these motors, and it makes them especially prone to cavitation. Modern PS 7.3's have less compression, so they're not at as high risk to this as the old IDI's. What speeds up this process even more, is a turbo. More turbulence and pressure is added into the combustion chamber, making the flexing of the walls more pronounced, and ultimately speeding this whole process up a bit. Proper SCA's and frequent coolant changes will make cavitation virtually disappear, as SCA's provide a "barrier" between the wall and coolant, lessening the effect of the vapor bubble.