i am having a lack of power issue. it has been going on for about a week but friday night i made an out of town trip and doing 70mph with cruise control on, the truck just fell on its face. it started missing really bad and having almost no power at all. i was getting really bad mileage and for some reason my boost was higher than normal. at that speed i am usually between 3-7 psi but it was running at about 20. i am pretty sure that this could be a fuel problem. i would just like to see if yall agree with me or not. earlier in the week i put in 10 gallons of farm diesel with about 20 gallons of regular pump diesel. now i have heard three ideas of what could be causing my problems from this weekend. first is that i just got a bad batch of diesel. second is that farm diesel isnt filtered as well as pump diesel. third is that there is a sensor somewhere in the fuel system that somehow collects magnatized particles form the dye and blocks the line.

i drained the fuel water seperator but didnt get a good look at the filter. then i removed the upper filter which was filthy, cleaned it with some gasoline and put it back in. the truck ran better on the way home but still has a loss of power above 2000rpms. i am getting no codes and icp pressure seems fine.

i plan to change the fuel filter later this week after i finish running out this tank of fuel. so basically i am asking do yall think that seems right and fresh fuel filters will fix the problem? and do any of those statements that i heard about farm diesel seem accurate? and if so where would i find the sensor so i can clean it or change it? i dont have a fuel pressure gauge or anything to measure egt's but i do have a scan gauge 2 in the truck.

wouldnt the egt's be really high with running 20 lbs of boost for 30+ miles? could that have caused the truck to start stumbling and running real bad because at that point i slowed down to 60mph until i could get off the interstate and shut it down for a few minutes?

thanks in advance

 

hello.

sorry to hear u got a prob.

be careful ur not boosting too much as tat may blow a headgasket. it sounds like injector stiction from tat farm diesel thing.

might also be ur oil cooler or egr cooler or both. if u have a scangauge, u can monitor the ect & eot spread to know if oil cooler or egr cooler is dead. in tat case, if u gotta change one, change both.

wif regards to ur fuel filters, i wouldnt jus clean them to put them back, especially the secondary fuel filter (filter on top of the engine). i would change both of them everytime i loosened them. moreover, since ur vehicle is a 6.0, it is more sensitive to GASOLINE than the 7.3. on top of that, u cleaned it in gasoline and put it back. tats a no no. basically, wat u did was contaminate the fuel system wif gasoline. i dunno how much gasoline got soaked in there, but if too much, it may overwhelm ur fuel. also, where ur fuel filters go, is exactly where the diesel fuel gets cycled thru the entire engine. oh boy, i hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it sounds like contamination somewhere.

ur car is not gonna like u for this. it's sensitive. it hates gas. it loves only diesel. might be why it burped on u.

i would change the fuel filters out now. if there's a significant amount of gasoline in the system, i'd flush it out to purge it clean of gasoline.

the ect & eot is supposed to be a 15 degree spread for regular driving, and even for hauling. some might experience slight difference.

dont worry. the good fellas will soon chime in. best of luck. we're all here for u.

 

My first thought...check your fuel pressure. Sounds like the engine is starving for fuel. But here some of my thoughts/opinions none-the-less....
That's possible, but I wouldn't put much stock in that idea...yetNot entirely true. Off-Highway/Farm Diesel/Non-Taxed diesel comes out of the refineries just as filtered & clean a we use on the highway. Where it gets "dirty" is the tanks it's stored in. An old rusty water infested tanks will ruin the fuel...which gets pumped into the fuel tank of anyone using those tanks. If the tanks are clean and it's pumped through a 5-10 micron fuel filter before it goes to your truck's tank...it's just as clean.I'm going to say BS, I've never heard of such a device on the SuperDuties. The engine has no clue if your burning taxed or non-taxed fuel...it just wants diesel. As of 2007..both are 15ppm sulfur and other than how they're stored...they're the same fuel, just one has dye added (that does nothing other than tint the fuel).How long had it been since you changed your fuel filters? What did the fuel look like that you drained? Did it have water in it? Was there some kind of crap suspended in the fuel? Not sure what you would have seen if you looked at the filter, mine look dirtier when I replace 'em every 10k miles; but I'm not convinced it's the fuel tinting the filter media.In my mind, if there was this sensor that "somewhere in the fuel system that somehow collects magnatized particles"...it would be throwing a code if it was at fault. With that said, I think you've got a mechanical and not electrical (sensor) issue at hand. But I'm not an ASE mechanic or PSD tech, just a guy that's spend WAY too much time reading about 'em trying to understand 'em.
The filters might, if they're plugged. The fuel could be bad as well, but if your sure both fuel you mixed together were diesel I have my doubts. I think it's a starvation issue...the filters could be the issue. How long have you had 'em in the truck?Nope, pure BS. I really doubt it exist, but I've got some seasoning salt here at the house if I need to eat crow. I'd find an adapter to convert a M12x1.5 metric tread to 1/8" NPT so you can hook a gauge to the secondary fuel filter housing. A SGII won't be able to tell you the fuel pressure, the PCM doesn't know what it is...there is no factory sensor for it. A ScanGuauge only displays what the PCM can see.I don't think so, but then I don't tow/haul heavy allot of miles on grades...so it's possible. But it sounds like you were running light. The boost shouldn't have been above a couple of pounds in that case.

 

I would change the filters now. Low fuel flow and pressure can kill injectors. I wouldn't take a chance of injector damage to save $30. bad fuel could be the issue but as zhilton said "off road diesel" MAY possibly be dirtier due to sitting around longer in dirty tanks but it comes from the refinery as the same product. The rest of that stuff you were told is BS. I'm not sure about how the truck would run at speed with a lean condition, that may explain the high boost but I would suspect the turbo sticking. Depending on the ECM flash it could have caused further defiling (limp mode) when it was overboosting. Good luck! Change those filters and see where you're at.

 

U can run all the dyed diesel u want to in these trucks. I had about 20 gallons in mine before an it ran fine. Smoked a lil more but ran fine. I would change the fuel filter an drive it to see if it runs better an then go from there.

 

If the upper secondary filter was filthy, think what the lower primary filter must look like.

You need to change the filters now. How often do you change them and what brand filters do you use?

 

Yepp, I could only imagine myself

 

i just bought the truck a few months ago. i havnt changed the filters yet, im not sure if they ever have been changed. i saw no wrench marks on the caps. changing them was in my plans for the month of november because i was planning a cross country trip late in the month. i just picked up a set today will prbably change them tommorow at work

 

changed out filters and truck runs great. didnt solve my cold start problem like i was hopeing. found lots of water and what looked like sand

 

Glad it was something simple, hopefully you didn't starve the injectors when the flow/pressure was down. What is your cold start problem? Didn't see it mentioned anywhere in this thread.

 

+1.

The first thing to do when buying a used vehicles is to change the filters IMO. The reason the design was changed on the primary filter (added o-ring) was to prevent filter bypassing. As others have said, injectors are expensive and poor filter maintenance practices (re-using filters and/or going too long between changes or even using aftermarket filters) can be the quickest way to rack up thousands of dollars in repair bills.

If you travel out-of-town much (ie no fun being stranded out-of-town w/ a no-start), I would take it in and have a dealership do a cylinder contribution test.

 

Or join your state's chapter of FTE and see if there is someone near you that has an AutoEnginuty. You can do your own contribution test with AE. I'm not bashing a dealership, but their shop rate is very high...and they're proud of their tools/diagnose equipment.

Unless I'm miss reading where your from...it looks like you call New Orleans, LA home. Which case you'd want to get in touch with the Louisiana chapter:

Louisiana Chapter - Ford Truck Enthusiasts Forums

 

thanks guys. and yes new orleans is home and i had already joined the louisianna chapter.
ive only had the truck for a few months and all filter and fluid changes were in the plans to be finished by thanksgivivg. i will be doing coolant this week.
id love to bring it in to do a cylinder contribution test but its my only ride for the moment so that will have to wait.
it does have a cold start problem as in it takes several seconds to start even in high ambient temps. ive checked ficm and battery voltages plus the icp pressure is good

 

A contribution test takes a couple of minutes, all your doing is hooking the AE up via the OBD-II port and running a software based test. The truck isn't disassembled or taken out of service...it's just like pulling the codes. And in this case, we're talking about looking to see if an injector has been damaged (it will be weaker than the rest). Which if you catch it in time, the truck will only be down long enough to make the repair...not diagnose & repair.

 

ok thanks, i will look into that