I purchased an '08 F-250 Super Duty Power Stroke with presumably two "weak" injectors, numbers 3 and 7. I visited with a few buddies of mine and was directed to a guy who purportedly was experienced at doing these repairs, and I had him replace all four injectors on that bank, as that made more sense than just the two that were bad. Within 20 miles it started having troubles maintaining speed, (I couldn't go faster than 35 MPH), I pulled over checked things over as good as a dummy like me could and restarted it. It fired right up and was running like a champ again. All went well until we pulled away from the stop sign about 40 miles further down the road, (with two other stops in between); when again it was impossible to go over 35 MPH again. We chugged along for two miles to the next pull-off to let it cool down a little and with the hopes it would take right off like it did before. That did not happen, instead the check engine light came on. We limped it into the next town and had a shop run the code, it said injector circuit open #7. The mechanic I had do the initial work warrantied out a purportedly bad injector. However, within 10 miles of that repair, sitting at an idle, the motor dropped an octave with a deep diesel knock and the check engine light came back on. The following codes were read from that, P0281, P0307, U0100, and B1317. I took it back to him and he went through everything and came back with a low compression reading in cylinder 7, (150 psi).


Here is where I am perplexed, a loss of compression is related to either a piston issue, worn/damaged rings, or an issue with a valve seating. I have only put on about 15 miles since he passed that info along. It has ran well during that time, until yesterday when it dropped to the deep knock at an idle again, (no service engine light this time), and when I pulled away from the next intersection, it was coughing and sputtering and puking out a lot of white smoke. I was headed to fuel it up a block from there and it ran just fine the rest of the way home after that. What would cause the intermittent issues? What do I do next?

 

The injectors are in the head right? Did he damage the head while doing the injectors?

What does the smoke smell like?

 

Sorry to say but you have a cracked or melted piston. I just got my truck back from this problem. I had the 281 and 307 codes. My piston was cracked from having too much power while towing. If your injector did hag open then you probably melted a piston. My backyard mechanic pulled my cab, honed out the one cylinder, new piston and rings and off to the races. I am curious how you new about weak injectors?? How was this diagnosed? I am ordering a custom lower power tune for my truck in the morning. Sorry to give you the bad news.

 

Thank you for these initial replies. DieselCamper, I have not smelled the white smoke as it has only happened while I am driving. Eberlestock, the guy I bought the truck from informed me of that diagnosis and the mechanic I contacted confirmed it. (And yes, that would not be good news)

 

most of the replacement injectors on the market are refurb units in which they change the nozzle and use the "tested" ok electronic....and your paying 80% of what a new one would have costs.

I'm also doubting that your mechanic replaced the associated one time use fuel lines.

aluminum dust that looks like glitter will take out injectors....were the fuel filters pulled to attempt to do s root cuase....why did the initial 2 injecotrs fail??? if it was due to metal particles from the high pressure fuel pump, replacing the bad injectord with out doing the standard "metal particles from HPFS repair...then when you put in replacement injectors..they get damaged just like the initial ones did.