This is gonna take a miracle, but I gotta get this truck running again. If anyone in the DFW/Celina area wants to help diagnosis this truck, I'm gonna have to pay someone. If no freelancers, recommend a good Dallas-area diesel tech.

Summary of my previous thread "side of the road again":

Degas cap off, truck overheats mightily, defuels and dies.

Watered up, cooled off sufficiently, cranks smooth but nothing. Cools more, cranks more, coughs to a start, but revs kinda good, back to idle it falters, white smoke.

Few minutes, start again, runs bad, lots of white smoke. Shut it down, there's unburnt diesel dripping from tailpipe and sooty diesel on ground. A buddy helps me rope tow it to a storage lot. I took a Greyhound back to Houston.

Now, I gotta figure out what's wrong, drive back to Dallas and fix it or, find an honest tech to charge me a reasonable price to fix it.

I don't have enough money to pay a stealership what they'd charge me, especially since I'd have to tow it over there. They'd hose me big time.

To a bonehead like me, the truck has all the symptoms of a blown injectors, which could logically, I'm guessing) occur in a defuel event at highway speeds. But obviously, much greater damage could have occurred.

Worse news: my ScanGuage is acting flaky and I couldn't get it to do anything with this truck. Not sure if the ODBII is bad or fuse blown, or its my SG (I hate electrical stuff, too much for this bonehead).

With all this, what is my plan of action? Any guidance appreciated.

Ideally, I'd start by running a cylinder contrib test on a good Ford scanner, but I don't have one of those. Maybe instead:

1. Do bubble test.

2. Open oil pan to see if fuel comes out before oil.

3. Drain rest of oil. Crank with key off, see if fuel comes out empty oil pan.

4. If yes, disconnect fuel line to one head at a time to identify whether leaking cylinders/injectors are on one or both sides.

5. Replace one or both banks of injectors.

If there's no bubbles and no fuel in the oil and none comes out when you crank into an empty oil pan, what could be wrong to make fuel come out the exhaust? Could it still be bad injectors - just the failure is at a different gasket/oring? Of is it more likely a bigger issue like cracked head/blown gaskets? It doesn't seem like those problems would produce the amount of fuel I see at the exhaust; but I can imagine a bad injector pumping that much fuel out.

This is where I'm kinda lost. If I can't identify that it's very likely just injectors, such that I decide to tear into at that storage yard (and it's not an easy job on these E-series from what I've read), or identify what else it is so that I can make a firm plan to resolve, I'd have to tow this huge truck somewhere, which won't be cheap and will put me at the mercy of some shop. I'd prolly end up paying them for their diagnosis and towing it again to the storage yard and doing the work myself. That's an ugly option.

Any tips to confirm a diagnosis or eliminate possible causes would be helpful. Links to the "balloon test" I found on here are dead. What would the "buzz test" tell me - I've always had a hard time hearing the buzzes from inside the cab.

 

You really need to get that SG2 to work. Check the fuses it uses the same fuse as cig lighter or something.

I would at least give it a shot before having it towed. Scan it for trouble codes.

Dripping fuel out of the exaust,,,,, that does seem odd. This started as an overheat condition?

.

 

I'd post up in your local chapter and see if anyone has a scanner and would be willing to help you out.....

What I used to do on LB7 Duramax trunks to check for fuel in the oil without draining any, remove the dip stick a few times, dab it on to a clean paper towel, if there was fuel in the oil it would make a halo or ring around the oil. Google it and you'll see what I'm talking about.

 

Dripping out the exhaust could possibly mean a cracked head where the injector seals off the fuel.

I would think with enough fuel in the oil you could smell it on the dipstick.

 

I had another 6.0 blow injectors and dump fuel out the exhaust. So much that the engine ran away. That crazy story is here in an old post of mine. Once I got the injector replaced, it ran fine again. Hoping the same here even though this began with an overheat.

 

Do you have a wrench to remove the cap on the secondary fuel filter (On Engine)
I would do a bubble test. It's quick and dirty way to get an idea of what might be going on.



Sean <BR>

6.0L Tech Folder

 

Yes, I have that in my plan of action. Thought I'd check the oil for fuel first just because of how crazy it was when my old truck "ran away" on me.

Id seriously bet there are bad injectors, it runs exactly like my other trucks did with bad injectors. The bubble test doesn't tell me which injectors are bad though.

I'm just trying to figure out whether something else is wrong as well. For financial reasons, I don't want to buy a bunch of injectors only to find out I also have a cracked head. If that were the case, ID fix another truck I have to get back on the road and mess with this one later. But if I can swap in a few injectors and get this one going, ID rather do that.

BTW, the secondary fuel is a PITA on these e-series.

 

Pretty much everything is a PITA on the E series from what I have seen, the way they shoehorned that engine in that space. I will say there are some things easier with the doghouse off from what I have seen when they are being serviced at the local dealer.

 

Yep, think I'll start by taking the passenger seat out.

 

These may help:





Do you have an increased oil level on the dipstick?
As Mike mentioned above, you should smell diesel on the dipstick if there is much in there. Diesel and oil mix pretty well, so it probably won't drain fuel first from the drain plug. A used oil analysis might also be a good idea.

You can crank with the yellow wire (passenger side fender rail) shorted to the battery.

Personally, if you isolate the problem to one bank, I would just change all of the injectors on that bank (but I also understand that sometimes there aren't funds to do what is best).

 

Thanks for this. Forgot that the way to test with fuel out of the oil pan is to just activate the fuel pump. I was thinking I had to crank it. I can just turn the key on, right? If one of the injectors is leaking fuel into the crankcase, just running the fuel pump that way will generate enough to see the leak out of the pan.

In the other vid, the guy says that once I determine which head has the bad injector, I can identify a leaky injector by looking for fuel around the rocker arm? Never heard that, assume I'll need to run the fuel pump some more while watching the rocker arm?