A catchy thread title, huh? Hoping to hook a few readers here

Okay, I've been chasing quite a few annoyances with my e99 (Mar '98) PSD, and I have lots of questions I'm having difficulty tracking answers for. I've been reading Stinky's diaries online here all weekend and I'm starting to get paranoid. How does a loose injector present itself? What are the symptoms of a cracked / leaking injector cup?

A little history. Over the summer, I had a host of problems come up that I mostly assigned to the age of the truck. At the time, ~240000 miles on a stock truck, with no reason to expect that anything had ever been serviced (i.e., original orings, injectors, sensors), except for a new CPS last summer (aftermarket, bought it years ago as my spare).

So I went ahead and pulled the HPOP, IPR, fuel filter assembly, injectors, and R&R'ed every o-ring, deleted the EBPV (was a huge oil leak), new uppipes to turbo inlet housing donuts, FRx, HPx, new HPOP hoses, new ICP (oily), new glow plugs, new EBP tube, new EBP sensor. I cleaned everything, even running pipe brushes through the fuel lines. My turbo was coming apart, the four bolts that hold the two halves together had backed out and it was leaking exhaust everywhere. The only thing holding it together I think was the fact it had nowhere to go. After taking it apart and cleaning it, it seems fine, and initially the truck ran well right after all was done.

It runs okay now, but I've had smoke issues, lots of blue-gray after start up, and I'm slowly loosing coolant. My truck didn't smoke much at all when idling before I took everything apart, especially after warming up, it just ran like crap, with low power. Most likely from the lack of boost pressure due to the turbo issue. I never noticed smoke on the road before, but I wasn't really looking either, and it's now a noticeably blue/gray cloud. I don't see anything unusual in the coolant tank (except less coolant), but it's clean and green. Ther's is a lot of vapor coming out of the crankcase, and the oil gets very chocolately (is that a word??) quickly. Hard to tell if it's coolant, doesn't really smell like it, but it dissapates quickly in the air, like steam would. Running with the drivers valve cover off, the vapor clearly is coming from within the crackcase, not from around the valves or the injector seats.

Changed the oil once again after all the work (maybe 500 miles after the work), and it ran much better, but the oil is again a mess after another 500 miles or so. Have been running the stock Motorcraft 15-40 conventional oil during the summer, will try Rotella T6 this week. My thought is that I'm getting coolant in the oil. But how?

As mentioned in another post elsewhere, my MAP sensor seems to believe the intake pressure is 14.6 - 14.7 psi all the time, have a new MAP sensor on the way, also getting a new CPS. Before I change the oil again I'm checking to see whether I have any lose injectors, but I really don't know what to look for.

And finally, my PCM apparently doesn't support recording perdels, would "having the PCM flashed to a newer calibration" help? I put that line in quotes because I'm not entirely sure what that means. I see some tuners (DP Tuner for example) offer to re-flash your PCM with tunes, either stock, mild or wild, was wondering if a newer calibration would grant me the ability to get perdel readings.

I'm quite happy (for now) with a stock motor, but if I need to replace sticks, some upgrading then may very well be in my future.

Thanks all,
Tom

 

The MAP will show your air pressure at your altitude (compared to 0 PSI in space), so it's telling me you live close to sea level, unless those numbers are while idling.

Bluish smoke can be from a number of things that are oil related - it could just be bad injector O-rings.

Chocolate oil could be a leak in your oil cooler seals, but I always thought the oil went into the coolant there, not the other way around. If it's not the oil cooler, there are very few places where water is under more pressure than the oil - and that could be more involved.

Bad cups put fuel or exhaust gasses in the coolant when running, and coolant in the cylinder and/or fuel when hot, but not running.

 

Yup, that's pretty much what I was thinking. It's just that it seems so coincidental after changing all of those parts earlier.

Today I pulled the valve covers and checked the injector hold down bolts. All seemed tight, but nonetheless I loosened and retorqued them once again. No improvement, I hope that move doesn't come back to bite me in the tookus later.

The smoke is more whitish on cold startup, once warm it's a noticeable haze. I will try and upload a picture later.

 

I would start with replacing the oil cooler O-rings. When it sets it can draw coolant into the oil. Chocolate oil isn't good and can cause bearing failure. I had this happen twice in my old 6.2 chev diesel trucks. There's was from head gaskets some thing we don't have much of at all. You can get some in the oil when you pull injectors but not enough to make chocolate oil I would think. Your PCM mitt have a tune on it and that will cause haze when you get on it with not being live tuned.

 

X2 on the oil cooler. Re & re it, then after a couple thou miles get an oil anlysis to see whats going on.