its been a cold winter here in Chicago. I have a 7.3 2001 excursion that sits in the driveway when not being driven by the Mrs.

Last week we had some weather in the 60's for a few days, and then my wife left town for a week and the temps plunged back to the teens.

The excursion has sat for a week, with the block heater plugged in. The block heater is working.

I went to drive it yesterday, and realized the Mrs let it get extremely low on fuel. The display says something like 8 miles left on the tank.

I went to turn it on, and it cranked a bit slow, tried to fire up, a little smoke from the tailpipe, and then she was done.

I put a charger on it for a few days. Battery is fully charged.

I added 5 gal of diesel, with some of that winterizer to keep the tank from gelling up.

I changed the fuel filter. The diesel was already in liquid form in the filter, and the engine bay is warm from the heater, despite the weather. I filled it with 50% 911 and 50% diesel.

When I turn over the engine there is plenty of battery juice, and the starter sounds fine. But it seems no fuel is igniting.

 

If I recall Illinois is **** about bio diesel. It is harder to work with in cold temps.

suggest you put a 80,000 btu heater blowing on it for a couple hours to warm up everything.

than put a volt meter on glow plug relay to make sure glow plugs are getting power. If not get a new relay.

than make sure all glow plugs are working.

than hook a battery charger up and put it in jump start mode and try starting. A bad battery will let motor crank....sometimes very good, but not enough juice to activate some sensors to tell pcm to put fuel to motor.

 

Do you hear the fuel pump whine with Key on Engine off?

 

If your getting smoke out the tail pipe you should be getting fuel. It should of fired off with the 911 and fuel mix if it was a fuel issue in my opinion. Without anything to monitor IPR, icp etc we're guessing in the dark. Can try unplugging icp and see if it fires. May want to post over in the 7.3 forum.

 

The 7.3 forum is going to ask for:

Voltage
IPR
ICP
Fuel pressure

If you don't know these numbers, the internet won't be able to help you with anything but guesses.

Has the fuel tank ever been dropped to replace the pickup foot for the fuel?

 

I will check that tonight.

 

It got smoke out of the tailpipe for a bit while I was cranking it, but not any more. Now its just the starter cranking, but nothing is igniting.

I'm not sure what a ICP is, but I will research and post findings.

 

IPR - injection pressure regulator. Regulates the oil pressure to the injectors from the high pressure oil pump (HPOP). Computer supplies a voltage that tells it what pressure to produce.
ICP - An integrated circuit piezoelectric sensor (or ICP sensor) is a device used to measure dynamic pressure for the high pressure oil system in your 7.3. It tells the computer what the IPR is REALLY doing (feedback system).
Voltage - should not drop below 10V while cranking
Fuel pressure - normally 57-59 psi, but the engine will start with a minimum of 20 psi. In the absence of a fuel pressure gauge, you can open the drain on the fuel bowl, hook a 3/8 rubber fuel hose to the end of the drain, route said hose into a bucket or diesel container, and turn the key to on (engine off) to check the output of the fuel pump. It should pump fuel out the open drain lickety-split.

 

Is the truck parked on an incline?

 

Activate the drain on back of the fuel bowl to see if your getting fuel. if yes, I suspect a CPS (cam position sensor) or IPR (injection pressure Regulator) . Cps- easy change. Ipr not hard either. Good luck. A bad Ipr will not give any CEL and will just dye like you lost all fuel because you do, but Ipr usually will because the coil breaks down it will usually cool and start and run until it heats up. The CPS will just fail and it won't restart at least it didn't on mine. If you're not getting fuel and there is fuel in the tank it can be alot of things. the screens on pickup can be laying in the bottom of the tank and it won't pick fuel up with less than 1/4 tank. The screen could be clogged with all the debris or your pickup fuel pump on the drivers side frame rail may have failed. First check to see if your gettting fuel to the bowl and go from there.