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Blown 7.3

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Old Feb 19, 2013 | 07:04 PM
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Blown 7.3

Blew the motor up just wondering if anyone has any experience with the same thing.

I notice the truck was smoking on start up more then usual, it had a chatter and was lagging in power a bit. I just assumed it was poor injectors and or injection pump.

I let it warm up as usual and started driving, I got about half way up a small hill with no load on and heard a loud bang then the truck started shaking bad and smoking/steaming white.

I had it towed home, pulled the glow plugs and tried to start it. It just bound up...do you think It kicked a rod or is it possible its just hydrolocked and I can repair it?
 
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Old Feb 19, 2013 | 09:02 PM
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Did it drop any oil? water? I would suspect headgasket, or some sort of cavitation issue before id say it was blown, since ive joined this forum i can only think of hearing about 1 blown up IDI and the owner had said it had been knocking for a long time. Thas not to say you could have hydrolocked it when the gasket went and bent a rod... this all being hypothetical.

Just noticed, you pulled ALL glow plugs and it still wouldnt turn over? That would be bad.. and indicate something seized, bent rod, broke rod / piston etc.
 
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Old Feb 19, 2013 | 10:05 PM
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I have seen two IDIT with broken pistons, one still ran on 7 cylinders untill it lost another piston then it was done. The other one had 7 cracked pistons and three spun rod bearings still ran just Knocked somethin awfull. You will need to pull it down to find out for sure...How many miles on it?...
 
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Old Feb 19, 2013 | 10:06 PM
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Originally Posted by hairyboxnoogle
since ive joined this forum i can only think of hearing about 1 blown up IDI and the owner had said it had been knocking for a long time
Yeah, IDI's don't "blow up" often. Really check into that thing before you condemn it. It does sound like a head gasket except for it not wanting to turn over any more.

I've hear of some cylinder cavitation/pitting issues with the 7.3 IDI's (less with the 6.9's), but I doubt that's any kind of issue here since the problem was so sudden.

Good luck diagnosing what happened.
 
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Old Feb 20, 2013 | 12:03 AM
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Subcribing to see what happen.
 
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Old Feb 20, 2013 | 01:22 AM
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have you checked the water and the oil - i have a friend who killed his IDI by running out of oil. it didn't blow up, but knocked something awful until he had it rebuilt.

i screwed mine up pretty good last month, blown head gasket with extra complications.

try putting a long ratchet on the crank pulley bolt to see if you can turn it either direction, and note anything funny you hear or feel, that can tell you a lot about what happened in there
 
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Old Feb 20, 2013 | 06:18 AM
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Ok thanks I'm going to investigate further. It has low kms only 150 000 and I treat it with sca in he coolant. I'm wondering now if maybe the coolant leaked into the oil pan and is causing it to seize. I'm going to drain some oil/coolant out and try again. Ill let you all know what I find and if I rip it down ill post some pics
 
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Old Feb 20, 2013 | 06:30 AM
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It was a single owner truck, he had lots of money and looked after it well. The body is almost perfect shape, undercoated well there's no rust. The interior was perfect when I got it the only thing is there was an exhaust brake installed and I don't believe head studs done so I'm wondering if that may have weakened the head gasket and plus being 23 years old. I use it to haul heavy loads quite often maybe it was just too much for the tired old head gasket.
 
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