Hello everyone, been a while, but i'll jump right into it.
I took my truck to a shop for diagnostics and they told me my #8 injector is bad. I got a new injector today making sure they got the one for the #8 spot as I was told it is different. I replaced it, everything seemed to go ok. However, once everything was put back together I tried starting it and it will not start. It turns over repeatedly and tries to start but never gets all the way there. I didn't have the batteries disconnected when I did the job, but after the start fail I took them off and let the truck sit for 15+ minutes. I have also turn the key on and off repeatedly an attempt to "prime the fuel rail".
I don't have many other ideas about what to do here or what went wrong. One thought is torque. How imperative is it that the bolt on the injector gets torqued? Because I didn't torque it to anything specific. Also, this is way after the fact, but just to confirm, the #8 is the one on the driver side closest to the firewall right? I ask because I noticed that all the injectors I exposed had numbers that start with AD, and the different one I put in starts with AE I think.

Any input would be awesome, thanks.

 

Try adding some oil to the HPOP reservoir and try again. It takes a while to get the engine started after draining the oil in the heads.

 

You have the right injector in the right spot. The torque spec is 120 in/lbs I believe, if you snugged up tight without going hog wild I'd imagine you're alright there.

 

This is the solution to your problem. Without a topped off HPOP reservoir, you're not going to get anywhere. And, when he says "takes a while"...it may take two or three cranks at 15 seconds apiece (let the starter cool down for a minute or two after each attempt). Also, you will need fully charged batteries for these long cranks.

Heed Shake's advice...he's spot on.

 

I was eaten alive by the torque monster. You can chance it, but I tried the same approach and I had to dive under the VCs numerous times to address injectors coming loose and knocking. I lost a cup to combustion gasses reaching a place they shouldn't. 120 inch pounds is factory spec. I do 130, with clean threads and a hint of blue thread-locker (not the gel stuff).

Never overdo thread-locker in a closed hole like on the head of the 7.3L. It can hydrolock the bolt.

Air in fuel and oil... cranking usually works it out, but sometimes the IPR weirds out from the air.

 

The batteries are brand new, maybe two months old, so that shouldn't be a problem. I can add oil to the HPOP, but one question. Where is it? I had to look up the acronym to know what it was, lol. No clue where it is or technically how I will be adding oil to it.

 

Also, now that I think about it, the two bolts that are under the valve cover that drain the oil out of it from the HPOP, I never took those off and drain it. Should I tear it back apart and remove them to drain it, or should I just stick with the adding oil to the HPOP?

 

Removing the bolts to drain the oil was to prevent all that oil from going into the cylinder. That ship's dock is vacant. This is important and it's best not to go any further unless the answer is "yes": Did you drain all the oil and fuel out of the cylinder before buttoning it up? If not, don't crank any more.

 

I didn't drain anything form anywhere, no. However I must be pretty unclear as to the operation of this because I'm not following the fuel and oil into the valve business. I know I made sure no fluids or anything else went into the vacant hole left behind by the fuel injector removal. I take it this isn't the introduction source of the fuel and oil you're talking about?

 

Fuel and oil feed the injector. When you pull an injector (and #8 is the worst), all the oil and fuel from the rails on that head will drain into the cylinder through the hole for the injector nozzle. That fluid must be drained out or you can hydrolock the engine. My method is to first use a Mity Vac with a stretch of 1/8" water tubing attached. The tubing will fit in either the injector nozzle hole or the glow plug hole. I can get about a pint out of there. After that, I leave the glow plug out and crank the engine by shorting the starter relay (keys nowhere near the ignition). This last step blows out any residual. If you skip over the suction part and go straight to cranking part (glow plug out), expect an oilsplosion.

 

She liiiives!!! I never did drain the HPOP plugs. (I checked the HPOP reservoir it was also full) As you said Tugly, the concern was what is in the injector falling down into the hole during removal. So I figured A: It's already been pulled, draining now is a little late. B: More importantly, the injector was bad, totally plugged, figured not much could have drained out of a plugged injector. I'll post a pic of what the inside looked like.


What I did do what back off and then torgue the bolt for the injector. Started up on the first crank. So who knows, maybe it was that, or maybe I just had to let it sit, or didn't try it enough times yesterday.

Either way, I am going to go put it back together and go for a test drive. Ill let you guys know how it goes!

 

Starts and drives well! Only issue is it still takes a while to start but that seems to take less and less time on each start, so hopefully that goes away. Thanks for the help everyone!

 

Drive it for about 100 miles and it should start normal again. It takes a while to purge all the air out of the system.

 

Woohoo! It always feels good when something works. Congratulations! Just drive... the starting will get better as mentioned above by my friend carltonwebb.