Hey guys, I'm working on an early 2004 6.0 currently. The guy was driving down the road when it cut back to nothing but an idle and now is a no start. He's taken it to a bunch of people who haven't been able to help him where it's ended up at my door stop. In the four months it's been dead, they've been able to tell him fuel pressure is good and they found to broke wires. So watching numbers while cranking on it, ficm says yes, voltage is at 48, Icp desired was over 1600, Icp actual is just cresting 550-600 where the engine is just about to start. So that tells me it has a hpo oil leak. I pulled the oil filter and held down the valve and had someone crank to test low pressure just in case. So I pulled the passenger side valve cover and it's an 04 so no standpipe, it's a high pressure line, I capped the line off and cranked watching numbers and Icp actual climbed over 900 and she fired and ran, on the driver side of course. So this being an early 04 with no dummy plug or standpipe, the only hpo oil leaks left are the oil rail nipple o rings and the top injector o rings correct? Thanks for any help you guys can offer, please and thank you.

 

Could be a pump issue as well. The 03 and 04 hpops are a fixed swash plate style pump. The timing of the swash plate moves when they fail, this will reduce pump output volume. Lower volume will produce a lower pressure. By disconnecting 1 head and capping it with a failed early pump I would expect to see an increase in icp.

 

Thanks for the response, is there any way to test the pump or just change it out? I can evidently see blow by on the oil rail nipples going into the injectors, would this be enough to create a no start issue and dump all the oil back into the base?

 

You need to do an air test before just assuming HPOP, that said the odds are heavily in your favor that it is, in fact, the HPOP. There are a hundred threads or more on the air test.

One thing to remember about the oil rail, and that is they won't always seal the best until they see pressures they were designed to hold. I had this same issue on my 03 after replacing the HPOP.
Had the drivers side off, and could not for the life of me get things to seal up to the point of no air, period..........this after replacing the upper injector seals and the nipple cup o-rings. What was happening was after so many minutes of the air test, I was replacing all the oil with air. Buttoned back up and she will push 3800 psi at WOT. It takes pressure to seat things, especially after being opened up.
Some master techs rarely bother with the nipple cup o-rings unless there is obvious damage to the upper injector seal.

That said, I am wondering why it won't light since you are seeing over 500 psi, which I always thought was the holy grail, unless the sensor if just a little off. When you say you are cresting, does it then start to peter out and fall back down?

Have you tried parking the truck nose down overnight and starting next morning? Also curious, what are IPR numbers during cranking?

 

thanks again for the response, I wonder'd why it too would not light at 500 or so. When first cranking, ICP Desired quickly rises to 1600 to 1700 PSI. ICP Actual slowly builds to 550 or so where the motor is just about starting but not quite there. If you let off the key and quickly get back on it, the truck will fire for half a second and die. I can command the ipr closed to 85% with no difference in any numbers or engine sound. but as soon as I block off the passenger side head oil line, icp desired still goes to 1600 or so, but ICP actual builds to 900 or so and it fires and will idle. I checked one of the top injector o rings just now and it seems good, no signs of high pressure oil attacking it through a nipple leak. I'm leaning wayyy towards a HPOP being bad now.

 

and I say Cresting as in the pressure builds to 550 or so and she just stops right there. I did pull the IPR and check that out, the screen looked good and I didn't see any issues, that was a few days ago anyway. The turbocharger is right on top of the ICP Sensor and the IPR so testing is a bugger.

 

Yes testing is a real treat on the early builds with the ICP buried back there.

Def have a leak, my money is on the pump. Early builds don't suffer the stand pipe issues of later builds, and don't have any dummy plugs obviously--the snap fitting on the discharge tube not problematic like the later builds.
I would however advise replacing the discharge tube on the top of the HPOP since you are that deep anyway, if it comes to that. Would still advise an air test thought, no point throwing money at it you don't need to.

 

alrighty, sounds like a plan. thank you guys very much for your help and advice. if I put air to the passenger side high pressure line and command the IPR closed the air should go back to the base correct? if there was no high pressure oil leaks ofcourse, if it is the pump I should hear air gurgling back there under the turbo, correct? getting a fitting into that IPR hole to test the entire system would be a Real pain without pulling the turbo.

 

You will likely hear gurgling coming from the oil filter base with the filter out.
I have read that common theme from early build owners, myself included, that when doing the air test, there was gurgling from the HPOP supply under the oil cooler and it changed pitch depending if the IPR was energized or not.
Truth be know it's likely your HPOP.....and yes, it's a pain with the turbo in the way.

 

So I took your advice and hooked air up to the passenger side head oil line and pressurized to 120 psi, adjusted duty cycle on ipr and I can hear gurgling from oil filter housing and there seems to be some gurgling noises coming from near the oil cooler as you had said. I'm going to get a new IPR and a new High Pressure Oil Pump, I talked to the owner of the truck and updated him on all of this and we decided to change out the IPR when we do the pump as well because of where it is and the P.I.A it is to get to. Not to mention I believe the warranty on the new pump is void if you Don't change it out anyway. One more question I have is, the oil rail is sitting here on my bench, how come when I provide air to the HPO Line fitting hole, air does not equally come out of all the Injector nipples? Air only adequately comes out of the first two nipples, nothing out of the back two till I block the nipples off. is that the oil rails way of balancing out injection pressure throughout the rail equally to each injector while it's under high pressure?

 

IPR is not tied to pump warranty that I have ever heard of.

As for the air test question that makes little sense to me. The check valve is first in line, screws in to the top of the oil rail, but would not make a diff how air or oil is distributed.

Maybe it's just a case of the air taking the path of least resistance? What is the point of blowing air through the oil rail? If you are doing an air pressure test then by rights you should have them all blocked off. There is no inherent internal balancing on that oil rail that I have ever heard of. Not sure I would read to much into that.

Just a word of advice, before you take that HPOP cover off, that area should be clean enough that you would eat off of it, literally. Take a screwdriver and rag, and run it along that sealing area BEFORE you take it off. Blow it out, repeat.....as many times as it takes. You can end up with trash in the screen of that new IPR if that area is not clean and dirt falls down in that area. That last thing you want is a come back after a hundred miles only to find out the screen is full of junk.

Did customer have any way to monitor data? I'm curious if he knew what the delta was between his EOT and ECT. If it's over 15* now is the perfect time for an oil cooler.

 

Yeah maybe the IPR being tied to a pump warranty is on a 7.3 instead? Or maybe not at all and it was just something I heard. But after talking to him he thought it was a good idea to change it with the pump anyway. The customer does not have any monitoring devices, she's just a bone stock farm truck. He's just hoping on getting it running and drive able again, he's made three truck payments on it with no driving because it's been sitting at three other shops for the past three and a half months. And out of that time I've only found where they have spliced the pig tail on the IPR, it looks good, but three months? Come on. Just taking him for a ride. Anyway, I only pushed air through the oil rail to get the rest of the old oil out that was dripping on my bench and I noticed air would only come out of the two front nipples unless I put my fingers over the nipples and then air would blow out of the other two. Just trying to completely understand the in's and outs of this engine design is all. And I will for sure make that hpop cover area shine before I remove it. thanks for that, like you said I don't want any come backs. no sense in doing it if it isn't gonna be done right.

 

Hey guys, i just wanted to update and also have another question. I finally got back to this truck on thursday and pulled it apart down to the hpop cover, whoever worked on this vehicle before did a terrible job as they was no bolts holding the turbo in place. absolutely crazy. so made sure and got a new set of turbo bolts as well. but anyway, after cleaning the hpop cover off four or five different times giving it a good scrubbing each time till it was polished, i pulled it off and set it on the bench and pulled the ipr, which was missing its screen when it came out, i looked up inside of it and found the ipr screen crushed up inside the cover. So, my question is, being this deep in to the project, do i change the pump out anyway? or do i change out the ipr and put it back together? The screen is missing most of its plastic casing that holds it onto the ipr so the pieces must of gone through the pump i would assume. I can see on the side of the pump that the little check ball is stlll in place so that hasnt gone bad yet. and would the screen being off the ipr cause it to not build over 500 psi? The three o rings the pump uses seem to be in decent shape, not too stiff. Thanks for the help guys!

 

I had my brother change mine anyway because A, he was already there, and B, I don't like to be stranded hauling my horses anywhere. Besides I had already paid for it. Just my opinion.

 

If it were my truck I would replace the HPOP. I would also set the owners expectations that the truck may end up with another no start condition if/when the IPR screen fragments finds their why to the IPR... Hopefully not tho!!