My 2000 7.3L PSD (Excursion if you're interested) is starting to leak quite badly now when the engine is running (and is now requiring an oil top off far too often). When I took it to ford for a recent safety recall (cam shaft sensor), I asked if they could give me an idea of why the oil is leaking, and what the cost of the repair will be.

The information I was given was that the high pressure 'O' rings need to be replaced. Not much involved in parts, but, quite a bit in labor. Estimated bill would be above $400.

Is this a fair price to get the job done? I just moved to my neighborhood, and really don't know of any diesel repair shops around here, however, if the job should only cost around $200, I might be interested in trying to find a local repair shop that does this.

And for the follow up question, is there anyone here from the Los Angeles region (Pasadena specifically) that can recommend a good mechanic for getting diesel work done?

Your recommendations/advice is most appreciated.

 

Is there some reason you can't do it yourself? $400 seems.....excessive for an o-ring change.

 

HERE'S a site sponsors oring kit for 30 bucks. That leaves 370 for labor. Might want to crawl up there and have a look yourself.

 

I am not really a skilled mechanic by any means. If it is an easy job that I was certain I could do reliably, and there was sufficient information on how to do so, I'd be inclined. However, if it ends up taking an entire day or weekend, I'd rather pay the $400 and spend that time with my playing with my daughter and spending time with my wife (as I don't get to do so much during the week) as opposed to cursing to myself underneath the truck.

Nonetheless, if the job should cost significantly less than $400, I am definitely inclined to seek out a good mechanic in this area (first 12 places I called however, do not do work on diesels.)

 

@zx250:

Thanks for the link, the parts certainly look simple enough. If you by hand know of an information source on what is involved in actually performing the work, I'd be quite interested. Meanwhile, I'll see if searching here and through google turns anything up.

 

Have you identified exactly where the leak is? We're probably talking about the HP oil lines. I have seen an oil leak on the HP oil line fixed by just tightening the connector that's screwed into the head. The lines are a quick connect type so you just need something to help you with the quick connect function and they should come off.

You can also look here 7.3L PowerStroke O'rings for the o-ring dash number and type and pick them up for less than $5

 

It's not all the tough, just a bit tight in some places. Chances are the HPOP lines are where the leak is. Here is a picture to show some of the stuff.

 

@zx250:

Thank you for the picture.

I got up under the hood, got that plastic cover off, and found the same area in that picture. However, it seems my oil isn't leaking out of the top side. Couldn't find the source of the leak from the underneath either. If it's buried somewhere in the middle of all sorts of parts, I may be out of my league for doing this myself.

Going to get into it more this weekend, but, if I can't make headway, I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and take it to Ford on Monday (4 guests coming in from out of town on Tuesday evening, and my GTO just won't be an appropriate vehicle to pick them up from the airport in).

Thanks for all your help. If you've got any other suggestions in the mean time though, I'm all ears.

 

look at this..it may help you find the leak and will tell you how to fix it..

EDIT shoot me a PM with your email..i cant sent it through here....