I did all this to my truck so I wouldn't have problems with it and break down away from home while driving it. That said, I have had the transmission go belly up (stock not-diesel-specific torque converter grenaded), ignition-lock cylinder broke in half internally (metallurgic manufacturing defect), the wife ran out of fuel with a 1/4 tank (pickup foot broke off in tank), and the stock turbo bearings ate the dust after I put too much boost through it with non-stock tuning. Fortunately, we were able to limp home locally on the transmission and turbo failures.

With my military aviation background, I am a fervent believer in preventive maintenance where there are known worn parts. I replaced all the oil system o-rings, both HPO hoses, and fuel bowl o-rings because they were 14 years old and there were newer materials out there that were vastly better than the original materials. When I pulled the old o-rings out, they were gummy, soft and falling apart (without exception). The big, blue o-rings on the oil rail end plugs were like string cheese when I took them out. I have no idea how they were holding any oil in. My fuel lines from the bowl to the heads both had vibration damage to them from all the years of service, so those got replaced before they failed as well. My injector o-rings started leaking oil into the fuel system (blackened fuel filter) before I replaced them while upgrading the injectors to single shots (more efficient). The injectors themselves had 260,000 miles on them, and were due for maintenance anyway in my book.

Sorry for the long post, but your question doesn't have a simple answer

 

Denny,
The OEM CPS dropped dead on me at 135K. I replaced it with the Autozone component and have not had any issue until now.

The truck ran smoothly and then stalled. The stalling is very erractic. There is no particular pattern. Sometimes it happened while cruising at street speed under 40 miles/hr and other times while at 15 miles/hr (school zone). Twice it stalled while standing at red light. Each time it would not start up if I attempted to crank up immediately. Let it rolled or sat for a minute then it would start and then ran smoothly with full power again. I have not dared taken it on freeway since it started stalling. When engine stopped and there was no power its steering and brake basically were non-functioning.
The truck is all factory. No chip and no mod. Fuel tank was full. I always add 2-cycle oil into fuel to keep engine properly lubed.
Thanks for the tip. Let me go through the wiggle test and see if I can rule that out.

 

Mike,
You had 260K miles on the truck when you had all these preventive maintenance done?
Man oh man....the stuff you listed there is way above my DIY league.....

 

I would replace that aftermarket CPS with an OEM one, Riff Raff Diesel sells them. These truck are known to not play nice with any aftermarket sensors, especially the CPS. It is a relatively cheap and easy swap and could easily solve the issues you have been having.

Just remember with sensors, OEM is the way to go!!

 

Isn't the OEM sensor defective in the fist place? has Ford fixed that CPS issue with the current units they now carry?

 

The original (black) one had some issues, which is what prompted the recall and change out to the grey ones. The black ones ran a lot better but were prone to failure, hence the recall. The greys seem to last longer, but still are not perfect. There is the blue/purple one that clay sells it is supposed to be a happy medium between the two.

The aftermarket ones are known to cause a lot of stalling issues in these trucks, kind of like what was mentioned above, and are a lot more prone to external interference (windshield wipers being the big one). The OEM ones do not have near as many stalling issues as the aftermarket, unless the sensor itself is going bad.

I know which I would bet mine and my families life on. The engine shutting down doing 70+ down the freeway is not anything I would hope to experience and definitely not with my precious cargo onboard. Can it happen with either sensors? Yes, but one has been shown to be a lot more reliable and less troublesome than the other, that is the one I am going to go with.

 

I started doing preventive maintenance when I bought it at 205k miles. Been replacing wore out stuff ever since.

 

Hey, Rikster,
I took your advice, went to Ford dealer and got an OEM CPS. That was three days ago. No more stalling since I put in the new CPS.....yay....

You are right, the CPS I bought at Autozone has 15K miles on it. That really is terrible. I thought that aftermarket part should be better than defective OEM counterpart.

Thanks for your advice.

 

You are more than welcome, glad your issue seems to be solved! Just remember OEM only for sensors on these rigs!