To be thorough, the FICM needs to be tested when cold at KOEO, cranking, and then at 2000 rpms. repeat when hot. Did you do this? Even then, a FICM can sometimes be bad even with good voltage.

 

I would try to cycle GP 2 Times then start

And its Crazy to start these trucks that Cold without a Block heater your asking for HPO Problems

,my truck will start at -10*f to but sure is hard to push oil thru stuff when its almost a Solid

They all switched to High Press Fuel systems for a Reason


it started 19 seconds into the video so was the video started when the GP were engaged??

Turn key on first time let it go for 45 seconds yes they still on with the GP Light Off
Then Do it again and then start it

When you ccycle the GP That fast it only heats some of the Air in cylinders then try to start the Rotation and action of the Engine Pushes MOST that HOT Air out!!

So basically its almost like starting it without a Glow Plug System at all when its done too Fast

SO do it Longer it will start to heat the cylinder walls and heads up to what will help

TRY IT I could be Wrong but Your saying the truck runs Great after a minute or two so that leads me to believe there Isnt really a Problem

 

Re-reading your thread, Ford does not recommend 15W40 below 20 degrees (probably 30 degrees is a better cut-off point).

You need a 10W30 or a 5W40. Personally I prefer a 5W40 if towing a lot.

Also, pressurizing the coolant system will not typically identify a leaking head gasket issue.

 

Is he puking Coolant or something???

I saw a few posts mentioning HG but never saw where he gave those symtoms

Guess I should go back and read Closer


And I believe I read in my manual the Block Heater is STRONGLY recommended at anything Below 32*f

 

Post #25 talked about running low on coolant and having a gallon of it handy. Hard to know what that meant exactly (ie maybe it was only a leak from a hose?).

 

OK I found it

I think you should get some more info before we condemn HG
He mentioned that he replaced the Cooling Cap did that Help??

What is the coolant level at these trucks are Picky

What ECT are you running at after a fair amount of driving???

Radiator Clean and Clear??


The Start problem (What may go away with Longer GP Cycle) and Cooling issues will be separate IMO since the smoke is Black

Ever Clean the egr valve???

 

I didn't program ICP and ICR. One of the issues I have with diagnosing this is that the tech threads jump into a lot of acronyms and jargon without explaining what they are, and they assume I know how a modern diesel's emission system works, which clearly I don't. (Seriously, go re-read the tech thread and pretend you don't know anything about these trucks. Check the XYZ voltage and compare deltas to the ECT...) So I don't know what ICP and IPR are. Does ECT stand for "engine cooling temperature"? It makes sense that's what it would be...

Oil level is good, just checked it over the weekend. I don't recall where it was but it was between full and min. It does use a bit of oil, but not enough that I worry about it - usually less than a quart over 5,000 miles.

I did check, no codes. I just added FICM main voltage, FICM logic, and engine oil temperature.

No, I didn't.

That's a headache for a vehicle... it already takes several minutes to get it to the point of usability, between the wait for the GP and the fact that the transmission won't shift out of first until it's somewhat warm, and we need second gear fairly quickly (we live near a busy road with a 45 mph speed limit, so in reality we usually sit in the driveway for several minutes after starting the truck). A second key off-key on sequence adds another minute or two. It ought to be able to handle it on one cycle. (The oil weight issue elsewhere in this post would help.)

The sheer time it takes to get the thing usable in winter means that I avoid using it as much as possible then. We have two decent cars sitting in a relatively warm garage, free of precipitation...and a truck outside that takes almost 10 minutes to get up and running, which also is less efficient on more expensive fuel, and don't forget to unplug and wind up the block heater cord before you go, and parking a truck this long (SuperCab and 8' bed) at work can be a problem, too... So, unless we specifically need the abilities of the truck, we take a car each day and the truck sits.

What is HPO?

"Cold" here is like 30 degrees F. I mean, it gets down to the single digits and teens, but the video I posted originally was something like 40 degrees with a low around freezing overnight. I can use the block heater, and I don't mind it on cold nights (well, I do mind the hassle, but I can live with it), but in temperatures like what we have here, it shouldn't be necessary.

I normally do use the block heater when I know I'm going to be starting the truck in temperatures below freezing, but it doesn't seem to make a lot of difference. I just checked the online owners manual, and it says "...must be used if temperatures are below -20F." It doesn't give any other advice about when to use it. A Ford dealer told me to use it any time it's below freezing, which is what I've been doing.

We have a remote start on the truck, which waits until the wait-to-start light goes out and then a bit longer if memory serves. I hit the button to start it then started the video, so the GPs were on perhaps a second or two longer than the video.

Gah! I just looked online and it looks like I misread it - it's 15W40 if ambient temperature is above 50! So it looks like I'm using the wrong oil. Lovely. I like your 5W40 suggestion a lot - because we don't use the truck that much (less than 20,000 miles in ~30 months of ownership), we're often changing the oil in, say, the winter, and still using that oil while towing in 90 degree weather in July, so 5W40 should cover both bases reasonably well.

Yes, under a heavy load (i.e., towing our 10,000 lbs of trailer through hills and mountains) it blows coolant out the recovery bottle cap.

No, it didn't. No change as far as I could tell.

I refill the coolant to the max line when it's cold. If it were overfilled, wouldn't it just blow out the excess then stop? If not, why would it keep blowing coolant even after that?

If ECT stands for the coolant temperature, I just got a scangauge the other day and haven't towed with it, but the gauge on the dash has never showed it getting hot. The ECT and EOT temperatures were within 6-8 degrees of each other last night while driving around without the trailer. My memory is hazy but I'm pretty confident they were between 180 and 190. I was paying closer attention to the FICM voltages.

I don't know for the radiator, and I've never touched the EGR valve, but I've also had the truck for less than 20,000 miles. (It had 94,000 when we bought it; it has 112,000 now.) So who knows when it was last done.

 

There is a thread in the Tech folder on acronyms.

HPO - is high pressure oil. Injectors are actuated hydraulically using engine oil as the fluid

EOT - Engine oil temp
ECT - Engine coolant temp

ICP - the sensor used to measure the pressure of the HPO
IPR - the valve that regulates the pressure of the HPO

KOEO - Key On Engine Off

The proper coolant cold level is a little below the minimum line - say 1/4 inch or so.

I agree though - it should purge a little and quit if you have no other issues except the high level in the degas bottle (coolant reservoir).

 

Comments are in red below.

EDIT: I just thought of something....since your truck sits alot, do you have summer fuel in the tank? Do you use any winter fuel additives in your fuel?

 

LOL, no, it doesn't sit quite that much - we take the trailer out over Christmas each year, for example, and so that's about two tanks of fuel right there. Further, we tend to camp from March to October/November, then again at Christmas, so really right now is the only time of year when we don't use it as much.

Oh, yes, the engine is quite ready for it to shift, but the transmission is like, "Hey, no, not yet.........hold it hold it hoooooooooold it...OKAY!" If I'm really quick on the acceleration I can get it to do that for second, too, but it's usually not as long. I wouldn't say fully warm, but if I start it, throw it in drive, and take off, it won't shift for some time - I don't want to give a time estimate because I really haven't tried just throwing it in gear and going, but last night, after say two or three minutes of idling, it did it for perhaps 5-10 seconds when I first started out. I could've sworn I read that it was normal somewhere, but maybe I misunderstood that, too. (Transmission fluid is full and red.)

Quote:

You might be right, a gasser may fit your needs/wants better.

Yeah, that's my thinking, too - we don't really need the power of the diesel, and the extra cost of a new one means we'd need to tow a LOT of miles before we save any money (I did the math the other day, it was something like 375,000 miles). I think I could buy a backup gas engine to throw in when the first one dies for less than what Ford charges for the diesel option. There are things I love about the diesel, like having the power to do 70 mph up a mountain with the trailer, and not even realize it. And I love being able to use the larger nozzle truck pumps, and I like using truck pumps. I think my wife would be okay with another diesel, though...and I probably would be more open to it if I wasn't so worried/frustrated with this one.

This blows me away, but shouldn't - my fun car is a '99 Cougar, and they used to be notorious for showing low coolant when the reservoir was full, and the solution was to keep it a bit above full. Slightly below the min line is going take some getting used to for me...

First, let me say that it's actually gotten low enough during one trip that I got the warning message about low coolant on the dash, so I suspect it's not just a matter of overfilling. We were going to Cumberland, Maryland, it was full when we left, but I got that warning on Sideling Hill (fortunately we were heading for the rest stop anyway). I keep a gallon of coolant in the back of the truck at all times, so it was just a matter of letting it cool down and adding it, and it took most of that gallon as I recall.

That said, many times it IS just below the min line, but I don't know if that's because it stopped blowing or because our trip is done. Our area isn't very hilly, which usually doesn't cause a problem, but once we get up into Pennsylvania for example we start hitting rolling hills and I can pretty much guarantee that it'll be down a third or more (from max) each way of that drive. And I think it essentially stops blowing once we get out of the hills - for example, when we go to Delaware, which is only minor hills, I expect to not need to add coolant at all, or very little.

I usually don't check it "on the road" - I mean, if we're on a longer trip, I'll check it after we clear the mountains at the start of the second day; on a shorter trip I'll check it before we leave for home. It's usually mostly fine on flatland. Maybe we should move. (Nah, we want to take this rig across the country some day.)

Yeah, I definitely wasn't on a highway last night.

I'll have the shop change the oil to the 5W40. I had no idea...hope I didn't do damage just with that.

Thanks.

 

I knew I read about the shifting issue somewhere.....I found several threads and they all say the same as this one. Looks like maybe all your issues could be related. Change the engine oil to 5-40 for starters....that needs done anyway for your climate. ( Mark Kovalsky was an engineer at Ford for these transmissions)
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...ont-shift.html

 

Thanks! Part of my issue is that since this is the first diesel truck I've owned, I really have no idea what's normal and not. I'm learning quickly that many of my gripes are decidedly not normal. Maybe I should complain about the lack of seat heaters in a Lariat model.

I told my wife about the shifting thing not being normal, and she sarcastically said, "Great." My normal reaction for transmission problems would be to agree with her, because I've had a lot of bad luck with automatics (there's a reason we don't own any GM products now!). But my first thought was that it's not a problem with the transmission itself; more likely an issue with a computer module or sensor, or something like that. I'm glad to see the shifting thing is likely to be related to the engine instead, and especially glad to see it's likely to be related to the other problems we're seeing.

 

Yea, my wife and I complain about accidently bumping the heat switch on our seats.....while driving down the road with the A/C on....all of a sudden, "what the hell", my *** is hot!

Oh, and even though your FICM shows good at 48 volts, there is another part of it that can fail causing problems. Unfortunately, I do not know how to test for that but I'm sure someone will chime in on that. Hopefully it is your FICM, as that is probably the cheapest of all the possibilites.

 

You can by a set of seats at the wreckers with the heaters when you get all this figured out. Really, what your problems are most likely, if FICM and what not check out is you need to use Ford oil and Fuel filters, 0w40 or 5w40 synthetic oil, Ford Gold Coolant, add fuel conditioner to every tank, unless your burning it in a day, and antigel in the winter for sure if teh truck will sit. You also need to use the block heater and trickle charge those batteries when you are letting it sit. Its all just simple proper maintenance for a diesel. If you go to a gasser, you are really going to notice a difference in towing performance, but you got to do what you got to do. Miantenance is everything on these trucks, dont do it, you will pay the price in reliability. That is the same for any mechanical device. Your injector issues could easily go away without replacement if you check all teh things contributing to long life of FICM, batteries and alternator, baterry cells correct amount of de-ionized water, fully charged with a battery charger once in a while?

 

Although it seems the ICP's on the 03's tend to be more unreliable the surging you are experiencing is identicle to what my 03 did. Most definetly I would program the scangauge to check your ICP voltage and pressure. If it turns out to be the sensor you are looking at a 20 min job.