Alright. 99 Ford F-250 4x4 Ext Cab 287,000 miles. I know she is getting a little long in the tooth but this issue is new within the last month. It does seem to be better when it has been plugged in. On start up I smoke out the neighborhood. Blueish/White smoke, also sounds like it's missing on a couple injectors. Doesn't matter if you cycle the glowplugs a good long time. No help. Glow plugs are 1 1/2 years old along with injector o rings. Only thing new is I changed from Rotella T-6 to Delo 5W40 Syn, but it was doing it before the switch as well. I tested my glowplugs relay and that is working fine. Could I have lost a UVCH? Fuel filter six months ago or so.

Any other suggestions?

 

How soon does the smoke clear up?

You said you'd checked the gp relay, did you check the glow plugs? You can check the resistance pretty easy on the valve cover connector. Two outermost pins on each side of connector. Inner four pins are the injectors.

Are the injectors original? If so shimming could help but I'm no expert there.

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What does the smoke smell like? Could be coolant?

 

Given the age of the injectors, I'm leaning that way. Of course, before facing that prospect, all the usual tests need to be conducted. If the degas bottle is clean, it may be time for a Cody test. Is it possible an injector worked loose after your O-ring work? Any banging/knocking develop in the engine since the injector job?

 

Smoke will last 20 min sometimes, running rough the whole time, not until I get her going own the road that he clears up. It does seem better when the truck is plugged in over night. I normally used to have a little puff of smoke on start up. But this is ridiculous. I haven't checked the glowplugs yet. They are also about a year and a half old. I should be able to check them today. What's the resistance we are looking for again? Injectors are original. I actually have he shim kit in my cart on bay. Maybe is one to pull the trigger.


Smoke stinks. To me it just smells like exhaust. Not really have a certain smell to me.



I will check out the degas bottle today and report back. I will look up the Cody test, can't remember off the top of my head. I have not noticed any difference with the noise in the engine. I normally listen pretty close to that stuff and haven't noticed anything. Been wanting to try the hot shots oil treatment but its salty, and money has been a little tight.

 

287k on the sticks? Check the armature clearance on them.

 

I'm thinking that if it was a glow plug or two it wouldn't take that long to clear up.

 

I agree with walleye hunter. It shouldn't take 20 min fit the smoke to clear up. This winter before I got time to wrench on the old girl I had a failing gp relay, 6 bad plugs, and my injector orings were shot; truck still started unplugged down to nearly zero and the smoke never took more than 5 min idleing in the driveway to clear.

So given that tidbit I'd say that armature shimming may be in order. Or new injectors. Personally I'd try to save the money and try shimming before I drop coin on injectors.

Glow plugs should ohm out between 0.8 and 1.5 ohms. Definitely test every thing you can before you start buying parts hopefully something will give you a solid fail. And start with the cheap easy stuff. However, at this point I think pulling the valve covers is unavoidable.

Since I'm at home all day I'll see if I can find a link to the injector shimming process.

​edit:
here is a link to a YouTube video I thought​was pretty good on checking the armature clearance. Someone did a write up on these forums a couple months back that I thought was good but I can't find it with my inferior search fu. I'll update if I do find it.


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Alright took a few more days then I wanted but here is what I have.

Degas Bottle is clear.

Glow plugs are as follows:

P D
.5 .5
1.1 .5
.6 .5
.5 .5

These are from the rear towards the front. I did find that on the glowplugs that read the 1.1 that it appear that the terminals on both the valve cover gasket and the wiring harness have gotten hot.






That's what I have so far.

 

I have that tee shirt.






Aside from a new VC gasket, you'll want to click this [LINK]

 

So that's not really anything. I am guessing the shimming of the injectors is next.

 

Those burnt pins can cause some problems. New valve cover gaskets and uvch on each side might go a long ways for you. Don't remember if you said that happened already or not. If you're in there already it certainly won't hurt to check the clearances on the armature and adjust if necessary. One of the big tuners,I think swamps, recommended against the doorman uvch. Said they'd seen some get brittle and short out causing gp power to interfere with injector operation. But I've not seen it first-hand.

 

Considering you don't have to pull the injectors to shim the gaps on armatures...thats an easy fix to try and not expensive. My injectors are at 444,000 and that's all I've had to do so far. Next time I'll probably replace them... but so far its working for me

 

I see a lot of sand and grit in/out everywhere on the connections. I agree with the forums advise but give that thing a bath man.

Get new uvch's and don't button it up.

ohm them out again before you do anything further to save work.

That could also be why your dropping an/multiple inj's .

Some folks would eat off those connections, a 7.3 won't. (my wife would lol)

Denny

 

You can get a can or 6 of this stuff at Wal-mart or parts store. I would suggest getting some and cleaning up the connectors like Denny mentioned and go from there.





Also, I was doing some reading on shimming the injectors because as much as I would like to have 160/80 PIS injectors, the money is difficult to come up with. I would be very interested in getting 350K+ miles out of the OEM injectors which are now at 242K. I saw there were some "shim kits" available and also saw where people were recommending just getting washers at the hardware store and scrubbing them down until they were the thickness you desired.

Let us know what course of action you take from here and how it goes.