Hey guys for the past few days I noticed my truck would be really rough to start and alot of white smoke. but once it ran for a minute or less it would be fine. Today when I got home I popped the hood and was looking for anything and noticed my degas bottle had this weird fluid inside on top of the coolant?????????? so i popped the cap off and smelt it and its fuel. Of course this would happen to me. Now I'm not going to lie I have beat on it a few times this week but nothing so so serious. Could this be contributing to it? Could it be a headgasket? now being a diesel mechanic I doubt its a headgasket simply because there is no oil mixing. Im praying its nothing toooooooo major. Once I have the narrowed down to what it could be ill see if its something I could tackle or if the stealership has to do it, which I am not looking forward to. Id rather be down a truck for a little bit and save a boat load of cash. Please help!

Thank you,
-AJ

 

Leaking injector sleeve.

 

injector cup? not sleeve right? or is that something else

 

Same thing. Ford calls it a sleeve. F4TZ9F538A is the part number.

 

Injector cup/sleeve x2. Not much fun but not too difficult either. Riffraff has the tool, cups, Loctite and decent instructions. Their torque specs for seating the cups may still be a bit on the low side.

Your truck will be down for a day and a half minimum so that the Loctite can cure.

You may want to consider replacing your injector o-rings while you are in there.

Does your truck still have less than 75k miles on it?

 

Injector cups. I have a link in my signature.

 

Don't think about replacing o rings. Do it! If you pull them replace them.

 

Thank you for all of the help! I talked to a ford tech as well and he also said its the cups. now im in the process of getting all of my parts so the job goes much smoother. as of right now i have the parts coming from Riff Raff.

set of cups
8 sets of o-rings
new fuel filter
Tool rental
loctite
(in the process of getting injector bore brushes) they are expensive!
New coolant and distilled water to flush with
New t-stat

what are some other things i should pick up before starting this? I changed my valve cover gaskets probably 4 years ago when i did new GPs. Should they be changed? I just want all my ducks in a row so im not scrambling last minute.

also do I have to worry about oil draining into the cylinders during the removal and installation of the cups? I read a few posts about taking the GPs out cranking the engine over a few times to remove the oil. is that necessary? I didnt see it in the instructions from Clay.

Thank you
AJ

 

There are two 1/8" Allen socket plugs in each head, under the valve cover on the side toward the centerline of the engine. If you remove them first, most of the oil rail will drain and run back into the crankcase. Then if you pull the rear two injectors first, whatever remains in there, along with the contents of the fuel rail, should be contained in those 2 cylinders. If you really wanted to go crazy, you could drain the fuel rail by removing the banjo bolts from the backs of the heads, but it probably isn't worth the hassle and mess. Personally, I've never bothered doing that . . .

 

No she has 170k is 75k usually when they fail?

 

Yes you absolutely need to evacuate the cylindars. Turn it over by hand a few times WITH THE VALVE COVERS sitting on the heads. Otherwise you will have a mess. Then after you do it by hand, crank it a few times with the key. If you don't your engine might not turn over when you button everything up or you could bend a push rod.

 

I feel ya! It causes your thought to drop to your stomach when you see diesel in the coolant.

Be glad you found it early. Most will not pay attention until the degas bottle swells and bursts due to pressure.

Check your hoses and all rubber gaskets, like your thermostat. Diesel degrades the rubber really fast! Flush the system really well. I'd advise flushing three or 4 times before calling it complete.

After my issue, the system was flushes and the thermostat gasket still failed after 300 miles due to residue.

 

I couldn't help but notice simply because the truck started like crap. Haha. Should I replace all of the hoses? To be on the safe side?

 

You may need new t-stat neck or aftermarket aluminum upgrade.

 

Yes, you should probably replace all of the hoses. However, I would wait until you have flushed it several times as Jesser02EX has recommended. I would flush it and then bring it up to full operating temp between the flushes just to make sure the thermostat opens, then turn on the heater, to make sure you get any residue out of the heater core and lines.

JT250 offers really good advice on evacuating the cylinders while the glow plugs are out after replacing the cups, injector o-rings with the injectors in their holes. Make sure when you pull the injectors you place them in an order so that you know which hole each one came out of.