Been gone for a while. I was pretty dumb and decided to sell my last powerstroke, and my idi, quit the job I had drilling wells, and join the Army. Anyway I wound up in the Colorado Springs area after being overseas, and I was looking around for another truck. I ended up getting another 97 7.3 with 274000 on the clock from a guy just north of Denver. He told me that the guy he got it from used it to haul horse trailers, and replaced a handful of injectors, as well as having the tranny rebuilt. Truck is 100% stock, including exhaust. Probably should have walked away from it, but Im still young and dumb, so I bought it. The exterior is pretty clean except a little body cancer on the rear fender wells, and the tailgate looks kind of trashy. The inside was pretty good too. Little tare on the drivers seat, but thats it. The truck seemed to ride pretty smooth on the test drive and on the way back to the springs. The brakes were a little squishy, but not terrible. Didnt feel like it got enough boost though, and it smokes pretty good and doesnt clear up. Sounds like there is an injector tic or a bent pushrod maybe (never had to deal with either so idk.) Only happens when accelerating. When its coasting/idling, you dont hear it. The front of the cover and valley are pretty clean, including the hpop and oil lines. The turbo pedestal was leaking though,at the o rings, and the ebpv. So I pulled that off to replace the O rings. I got my hands on a non EBPV pedestal and rear housing, so Im putting that on. I got guages in the mail to put on. Egt, boost and tranny temp. Theres a decent amount of white/grey smoke in the morning, so i figured some glow plugs were shot. when I pull the valve covers off to do the glow plugs, Im going to test the compression and see how the old girl is sitting. Theres some blueish smoke when you get on the throttle when its still cold, so Im hoping its the injector O rings or something. Being that they used it to haul, with stock exhaust and no guages (as far as I know,) Im assuming that it got pretty hot in its life time, so my expectations are pretty low. What are some things I should look for while Im digging through? I bought it to be a project truck, so I dont care if it sits while im working on it or waiting for parts/money to come in. I got a build plan going if everything looks good with the compression test, and Im probably going to save up for a bts tranny when she goes eventually. Any thoughts or suggestions welcome. And Merry Christmas Yall.

 

Sounds like a plan. Injector O rings, GP's, compression test, etc. I doubt if its completely stock that its gotten hot, Ford designed it like that. Bent pushrods and/or bent rod is unlikely also. Good luck with your new to you truck.

 

Will you post some pictures please.

 

You beat me to it Glenn. OP, you can't even get one hot if it is all stock. It doesn't produce enough fuel, unless there was a major boost leak, but that's probably unlikely. It just needs some TLC would be my guess. Keep us posted!

 

Will do. I'll post some when I get home tonight

 

Got the pictures as requested. Sorry if they show up huge, Im not sure how to make them smaller without using a photo editor. Wanted to post them yesterday, but didnt have a chance. Ol girl needs some paint. Dont mind my greasy hand prints, I got kind of careless when taking the turbo out






Theres that body cancer I mentioned over the rear wheels. Its not super terrible, but enough to annoy me.




Upper bearing and spring for the steering column was broken, as well as the shift lever. So thats torn apart, waiting for me to grab a beer and head out there eventually. I got the parts to fix it already, and I already replaced the shift lever.. Just kinda lazy.



Got a 3 inch downpipe to replace the stocker. Just gotta cut that one out eventually. From the pump forward was clean as hell down in the valley, and the previous owner "re sealed" the fuel bowl. Its not leaking, and everything works, with a brand new filter, so Im not complaining.



There was quite a bit of play in the shaft of the turbo, so I decided to rebuild, or attempt to rebuild it. The 270* bearing in there looked roached, so I got the 360 kit with new seals and a new wheel because the og one was dusted pretty good, or so I thought anyway. Having problems getting the center cartridge off the exhaust housing. Had it soaking in some pb blaster for a day, tried heating it up, neither seem to work. So any help/ suggestions on that would be wonderful. Worst case scenario, theres a diesel shop down the road from me, Ill take it to them and see what they say. Eventually, and not to get into a premature build thread, but I want to put a d66 on. So if it comes to that, Ill just wait for the d66, its not a big deal.




Before anyone comments on it, no, I didnt make the work bench. Came with the house, and it works for what it is I guess.

 

D66 is a waste of money. I put one on my original OBS and its not any better then the stock one, IMHO.

 

Thanks for the input on that. I'll take that into consideration when I finalize my build/budget plan. I still have a ways to go before I'm ready to commit to anything yet.

 

I'm so glad I'm not the project guy anymore.

 

Made some progress, but not near as much as I would like. My wife has a never ending list of stuff for me to do. I have the valve covers off and the glow plugs out waiting for the compression test, whenever that happens, and I have the adapter made to fit down in there. Got the turbo rebuilt, and got a non ebpv pedestal for it. I put a new ebp sensor on, and hand bent a new tube out of brake line, because the original was clogged and full of holes, and had been "repaired" with fuel hose by the p.o. Got the stock downpipe out. I test fit my two piece 3" pipe, and it slid right in after playing around with it. The firewall has already been adjusted it looks like. I bought the cheaper bellowed up pipes because the stockers look like someone cut into them, and I don't have a welder to patch them up. So I'll be working on those soon. My goal is to get the truck running good in stockish form by the end of february, unless I end up rebuilding the engine, then I'll probably try to do everything at once.


Old ebp tube and my hand made one.

The flat piece of crap

 

Looking good! I wouldn't worry about an engine rebuild unless your comp test is just pure crap. Get it all back together with this round of work and see what you have. My guess is you'll be surprised and happy....just my guess.

 

Pictures of that downpipe always make me laugh.

 

Got the compression test done finally. I'm not impressed with the numbers I have. I didn't want to put it back together to warm it up, so I did the test on a cold engine. I'm in Colorado springs, so at about 6000ish feet for elevation.
1 260
2 240
3 260
4 200
5 220
6 220
7 240
8 200

 

you lose 3% of compression per 1000' of elevation
Hopefully your gauge was good

the 260 vs 200 is a big difference
Maybe retest warm with block heater plugged in for a few hours?

 

I plugged the block heater in and let it sit overnight, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't work. Everything still seemed pretty cold. I went ahead and did the test again and it was pretty much the same as the first test