Hi guys. I am a longtime 7.3 IDI guy with an 88 F350 crew so i know about diesels. But this is my first electronic diesel. I picked up a 2001 F450 2wd auto 260k miles. it used to be my work's truck but was stitting for a year and now i got it in "non running condition"

i towed it home and got it started by replacing the batteries and using the block heater.
as expected it took a few tries of long cranking to run the first time. runs pretty good and no smoke. what surprised me is it still takes about 5 sec of cranking to restart each time when warm too. any direction you would look with those symptoms? HPOP, IPR?

i am pretty sure the glow plugs all work because mechanics had replaced all that stuff. but i know back when the truck was last used it would still never start cold unless plugged in (even in summer).

thanks!

 

Look at the glow plug relay unless a Cali truck. I don't know how but I guess I could of got some air in the oil rails sitting? Maybe drive it a 100 miles and see if it's still doing it? If so something else is wrong. Unless you have a way to watch the hpop pressure as your cranking. That's the only time IV ever had long cranking is when I do something to get air in the oil rails for injectors. Maybe someone elce can chime in. Could also be a sticky IPR you could clean it and see? Pretty easy to do you check the nut on it yet? Make sure it's tight.

 

another thing that can cause this is low fuel psi. I bought my e99 from a friend and never could get anyone to fix problem including his Ford dealer. All I did was install the needed fitting in fuel filter housing and checked fuel PSI. It would idle at 25 but should have been 60 - 70
I pulled fuel psi regulator and found it to be scored so I installed new one from Diesel o-rings.com. Now psi at 60 idle and starts up fast

 

Does it crank slowly? Before going to the more complex stuff look at simple things, voltage drop from the baattery to the starter, a bad wire. Slow crank, (after replacing batteries) bad starter. Get a cheapo liquid filled 100 pain tire pressure gauge from harbor freight and check your fuel pressure at idle.

Get a $40 obdlink mx and torque and check hpop and ipr. Well worth it.

What I've found is start with free, then go up. The simple things in most cases tend to be the problem, but are overlooked by everyone because "oh my truck is better than that and works perfectly fine there.. It has to be something big" mentality

 

great thanks for all the suggestions!

i think it does crank a little on the slow side but not really slow. i will check cables and starter.

i will also check the fuel pressure.

i have one of those bluetooth odb2 things arriving in the mail any day now so i can check codes and diagnostics with an app.

i will look into this nut on the IPR too.

will let you know, thanks!

 

I had the same issue on my 01 SD after about 3 months of it taking 5 to 15 sec to fire I ordered an AE to test rpms at start but the day it came in my starter completely died. Put a new one in and WOW this truck has never started this good it really spins fast now and starts quick 1sec or less. I thought I needed new gps but now I don't think so fired up this week at 15 degrees not plugged in with no problems. I thought my truck was cranking fine compared to my f150 but now it really spins fast.

 

If it is your starter do not get one from autozone or whatever. I made that mistake and the starter began dying slowly about 2 months later. Eventually it got to the point where it would not crank the truck, so i took it off and took it in to get my replacement but it tested good on there machine so they would not replace it. I ended up ordering a DB electric high torque starter off amazon and could not be happier.

 

thanks i will look at DB starters if i need to buy new online. i have always had the best luck with a quality rebuild from my local auto electric shop. the 7.3 IDI is really hard on starters with the high compression.

 

Nothing beats a demonstration. Here is a really long crank after I drained the oil from the rails. You can hear a healthy starter with good batteries, and you can see what's going on in there while it's taking its sweet time to start. If you set the view to 720P, you might be able to read the Injector Control Pressure label on the important gauge (top center - you need at least 500 PSI).

 

Rich, I don't know how you manage to do all that you do but I appreciate your work and learn a lot from it.

 

update - so my first cheapo odb2 unit didn't work and i got a better one and it works now. with torque i can see the long crank time is because the hpop pressure doesnt rise until after a few seconds. as soon as it passes 500 i can hear it try to start and it starts pretty quickly at that point. so i need to look and why the hpop pressure is slow to build.

 

I would stay far away from DB unless you don't mind changing them every year. I had a high torque and it died in a year, while the factory one although slow lasted 200,000 miles and a lot of starting and stopping.

 

thanks, i dont think i need a starter. truck cranks fine but hpop doesnt start building pressure until after many seconds of cranking even when it was just running.

i checked hpop reservoir and level is 1" from the top when truck has been off overnight.

ipr nut is not loose

 

here's a question - with the torqu app i can see the hpop pressure bleeds down to zero within a few seconds of shutdown. does that indicate a torn injector o-ring or other leakdown? is it supposed to sit there permanently holding pressure when not running?

 

Once that IPR opens up, the bleed-down is rapid.

You can look at your fuel filter to see if it's black. Here is the order of the suspects:
[1 through 8] Injector O-rings
[9] IPR
[10] HPOP
[11] LPO pickup O-ring
[30] LPOP