I'm hoping it will be this weekend, otherwise next weekend for sure I'll ready to try and crank over my motor.

It had 180k on it before I pulled it from the donor truck. This is everything I ended up doing:

- Taking off and resealing fuel bowl
- Taking off fuel pump
- - New fuel pump o-ring
- - New crush sleeves for fuel lines to head (didn't take off banjo bolt)
- New HPOP o-rings to heads
- New (reman) cardone HPOP and gasket
- Resealed Oil pan (and dipstick tube adapter)
- Resealed Front Cover, LPOP housing and HPOP reservoir
- New water pump & thermostat with gaskets
- Replaced Oil cooler with used superduty one (was told it wasn't leaking so I didn't change the o-rings..) used new oil cooler gaskets
- Replaced turbo wheel and pedestal o-rings

- Ceramic coated manifolds and put on gaskets
- Ceramic coated up-pipes and put new chevy donuts on them with liberal amounts of anti seize
- Ceramic coated upipe collector and reused gasket (was previously missing one bolt so I replaced that)
- New LUK single mass flywheel kit





Basically where I'm at is that the HPOP is empty of oil, the fuel bowl is empty, and there is almost no coolant left in the block.

What should I do to make starting the engine easier? I am still unfamiliar with the process so I don't know what to expect after doing all this work. The engine had issues starting before but I account that being three things: 1. The old oil cooler didn't have the pressure valve near the oil filter because it fell out, the HPOP was the wrong year so it didn't have the anti drainback valve, and the PO put additive in the oil.

Anyways, any advice on what to expect and what to make it easier on starting the engine would be great! I probably won't have it actually driving as of yet (need to make sure driveshaft is proper length and whatnot), but at least I'll have it turning over soon.

 

Fill the hpop and oil rails with oil dump diesel in the fuel bowl so it has something while building pressure.

 

Is this something as simple as taking the plug off the HPOP reservoir and filling it with oil? Or do I take the lines off (the HPOP side I assume so I don't have to replace the new o-rings) and trying and pour oil in there?

Pouring diesel in the fuel filter will be pretty easy I can do that!



Another side question regarding coolant. I don't believe there are any truck stores international stores around me so I'm stuck with parts stores etc when it comes to coolant. I think my local oreillys should have the coolant additive, but what coolant should I go with that they would sell there? I bought 4 gallons of distilled water in preparation, but I don't know if their generic green oreillys coolant will do or if I need to go with a different brand. Also, it's probably a good idea to prefill the coolant filter I assume right?

Edit: Thanks for the help by the way!

 

Yes theres a 1/4 drive bolt on top of the hpo resevoir top off (it will never fill all the way because it drains back to the oil pan), the oil rails any of the bolts on the oil rail will do (the ones where the hpo lines go to any of those) coolant any conventional with SCA additive will do, just make sure you get test strips.

 

Okay I think I know the main problem but would like a little advice as well. I got my batteries hooked up and I believe all the wiring issues taken care of. I get the wait to start light and the glow plug relay energizes.

The Bronco does not turn over however. When I first attempted it, it turned over for a few seconds then died. It cackled a few times last night, but I got nothing today. I believe the main issue is my batteries are very weak/and or dead. I have two chargers running up to them currently at 10 amps each, and will probably drop it down to the trickle charge with one charger of 2 amps when I leave for school.

Anyways, the truck just cranks and won't seem like it wants to turn over. I do get some tach movement but it's not a lot. I saw white smoke yesterday but didn't notice any today.

Here's the other main culprits I believe to not starting:

- New HPOP (so there is probably still air in the system)
- Took off and resealed Fuel Bowl, took out fuel pump, and took out fuel lines entirely when the engine was out (probably a lot of air in the system but the fuel bowl is filled with fuel, I put about 9 gallons of fuel in the tank as well.)

The HPOP reservoir seems to lower when I crank as well (after checking after consecutive cranks). Could this be that it is filling the HPOP up, or is it possibly draining back?

I got a superchips tuner with the truck and these are the codes it displayed:

01 - P0603
02 - P1661

I think I read P1661 is usually caused from a bad CPS or low battery voltage from what I read (which my batteries are definitely low from sitting for 2 months then doing all this cranking) and P0603 just means the computer has been tuned apparently.



Anyways, my main question is Is there anything I should be checking to get the engine started, or just wait for the batteries to charge and keep cranking away?

Also, Roughly how long will it take to have the batteries charged, and what amp setting should I put them on? The batteries have been charging today at the 10 amp setting, but I've been trying to crank as well. Also, I accidentally left the ignition on last night so they were almost fully dead this morning. I have 2amps or 10 amps for the charging rate. I also have two different chargers so I can run them both at the same time if needed to get 4 or 20 amps. School for me lasts about 6 hours tonight so they'll be charging that whole time.

 

IMO you are going to have a hard time getting it to fire with real weak batteries, even on a charger. You have a bunch of air in the hpo system and it can take a lot of cranking to get it to go. If I were you I'd get some new batteries and crank 15-20 second intervals letting the starter cool inbetween.

 

Yeah you're right.. I just wanted to avoid putting down 2 to 3 hundred for batteries. Im about to run out of funds! If it needs it though, thats what it will get. Plus, I think the cca of the batteries is either 800 or 770. Someone was recommending a minimum of 850 from what I read so they already are kinda low. Ill test the batteries when I get home since they will have been charging for some time but pribably get two new ones tomorrow.

 

Don't know how true it is but I read to give them 10 or more amps for an hour then 2 amps for several hours.

 

Well I didn't realize it but my old Bronco battery has 850cca and my walmart ones were 810. So I put my old Bronco one in and an older interstate boat battery (it was only 770cca but wasn't as dead as the walmart ones.)

I have been able to get the Bronco idling for about 5 seconds twice now, but it ends up dying shortly after. I'm guessing this is still because air is in the fuel or HPOP lines right? I'll keep trying this out until the Bronco stays running.

Is it normal for the HPOP reservoir to drain after cranking a while as well? I'm thinking its purging air from the system and using the reservoir oil for that but then not being able to fill it back up yet with the battery situation but I could be wrong there as well.

 

I think your right on all accounts, just keep trying.

 

Hopefully it's still air in the system but I'm starting to get skeptical.

With the different batteries, if I make sure the HPOP res is full, it will seem to startup somewhat withing 10 seconds of cranking. However, it dies withing 5 seconds every time it starts up. I go to check the HPOP res and it is empty. I drain some oil from the pan and fill it up in the res, then it will start again but die within 5 seconds.


Could this still be air working it's way out of the HPOP system and/or fuel lines, or does this sound like something worse?

When I had to front cover off, it looked as if the LPOP has been replaced with a melling one. There were less gears than the stock on and there was no directional markings on it and from what I could tell, didn't seem worn (I had no clue what wear looked like on the pump though.)

I did install a new pickup tube gasket as well when the pan was off. It seems like oil isn't being allowed to stay in the HPOP res though, which makes me think its the LPOP. Could it be something else like an IPR doing this as well?

 

Does the motor have oil pressure when it runs? There is a anti-drain valve in the front cover that might have gotten messed up when you had the cover off. After this many tries it seems like the hpop res should be maintaining oil level?

 

I just tested and the gauge actually read no oil pressure when it's running. For the drainback valve, I believe it's on the pump for 1994.5 to 1995. I know my old pump didn't have it, so I purchased a HPOP with the anti drainback valve. The oil level doesn't drop unless the engine is running

Could I have installed the LPOP wrong? It didn't seem like there really a wrong way to install it, and there was no directional markings on the pump. I believe it was a melling pump that was on there.

Or, could it be something is wrong with the oil cooler that I installed? I bought a super duty one with the c-clip for the drain valve there because my oil cooler was missing it entirely.

 

Okay I haven't done more testing but have a few ideas I'm throwing around.

Maybe the pressure regulator in the oil cooler near the oil filter (I realize now there is the pressure relief valve which my old cooler was missing, but also a pressure regulator that is further up) is stuck, preventing oil pressure. I'll take off my filter and see if I can shove a pick up through the hole and move it around.

Also, I don't believe I did anything to the LPOP when I took it off. As in, I didn't do anything special to prime it. Apparently, you're supposed to shove vasonline or something in there? Maybe my LPOP isn't primed so it's not pulling up oil? Is there a way I can prime it with it installed?

 

Alright another quick update.

I took off the oil filter and tried to see if the pressure regulator valve was stuck open. From what I understand, the pressure regulator valve is shaped like:

_______________
00000000|--------
00000000000000"Spring here"
________|--------

And when it's close, the spring is fully depressed. It should close only under pressure. There are some small openings on the valve you can see with the filter off. If you can see through the opening, then the spring is compressed meaning it's stuck open.

I could NOT see through, so I think the spring was NOT depressed, meaning it is functioning normally.

However, I just tried filling the oil pan over with 2 quarts in hopes of priming the LPOP or figuring if something happened to the pickuptube or pickup tube gasket when things were apart.

After filling up two quarts, I heard oil splattering on the ground. I went under the truck and saw oil leaking through an opening right about the oil filter next to one of the bolts that fastens the oil filter housing to the block. Luckily, I have my old oil cooler still which has a plug there.


I don't know for sure, but I would think this would cause pressure issues being that the system isn't fully enclosed. I'll try to swap the plug and see if that makes a difference. Does anyone know what this plug is for?

http://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/331526...-1/s-l1000.jpg

The brass plug in this image is what is missing and what oil was leaking out of. I had about 2 quarts of fresh oil just dump onto my driveway about 1" of an oil pan that was sitting underneath....

Edit: Well it wasn't the plug. I put that in and it still has no oil pressure....