My Fathers 96 F250 7.3 has been having starting problems for the last three years. He's at 150,000 miles, and it's become such a problem that were looking at buying a new truck for him.

We've been through the usual suspects such as glow plugs, relays, and batteries. The most recent occurance happen in warm weather (70 degrees). He also said it died at a light recently, and then turned back on. We've been practicing the cool down run recommended in the owners manual after pulling a heavy load, but this happens on short non load drives. Where he drives two miles. Turns the truck off, and then can't start it. The problem is very intermittent. Two weeks ago it pissed him off so bad that he wanted to scrap the thing. For the last two weeks it's been running fine.

In cooler weather it must be plugged in (anything less than 45 degrees). In those same cool conditions it starts rough, but pumps out a black smoke like you wouldn't believe. My 1999 7.3 is nothing like this. I expect a little smoke on a cold start, but his looks like a bomb went off. I suspect fuel pump problems. He's thinking injectors. Thoughts?

 

you could start by checking the fuel pressure theres a valve that looks like a tire valve on the fpr, maby check the cps, a compression check might be in order as well if the compresson is realy low that could cause similar problems, also check the oil level in the hpop resivor, im sure some people that are more knowlable than me will chime in as well

 

get the coads scanned as well

 

Oh you’re on to some things I need to know more about. Is there an existing thread I can read on compression? Could you say this again without acronyms, I'm a rookie on a lot of this.
What you’re saying interests me. Before I ever owned a diesel I remember a friend of mine fighting a starting issue and it turned out to be "the compression" compression of what I can't remember. I've since tried to get three different mechanics to check this, but since I don't know what I'm asking for they look at me like I'm an idiot. I probably deserve that look, but if I can tell my mechanic what you just said I might make some progress here.

 

fpr is fuel pressure regulator. i dont thin kyou have a cylinder compression issue if you are pumping black smoke out, black smoke is excess fuel, if you had an internal engine issue you would pump thick white smoke. thick black smoke sounds more like a sticky injector. you need to get your codes read and do a couple of self tests with the scan tool

 

I just talked to my dad, and wer're going to take his truck in monday morning. I'm going to ask them to:

1. Check the fuel pressure regulator.
2. Scan the codes.

Is there anything else you guys would recommend. I'm not against buying a scan tool if you think I need one to get through this.