Hello I’m currently working on my 2002 f450 injector cups and have only pulled the left side .have found one cracked cup and one of the injectors seem to have a darker tip .im worried this could mean it not functioning correctly does anyone have any information that could be of any help .i also didn’t drain my coolant and lots of coolant came out in valve cover could it go into my fuel system and cause anything or would it burn off

 

I can't do justice to any of the amazing injector/cup info in this sub-forum by typing anything here. All I can recommend for that is that you do an advanced search for "injector cups" in this sub-forum for that. There are over 2 decades of insightful information and experiences in here that can help you.

As for the coolant I don't completely understand what you are saying. Was it in there to begin with when you removed the valve cover? Did it come out when you removed the cup and the injector hole overflowed (which also means it's in your cylinder)?

Coolant in your valve cover won't go into your fuel system...it will drain down the passages into your oil pan and mix with the oil. That is bad. Mixing oil and coolant makes a milkshake-like substance that does not move very well through tiny oil passages.

When I did mine I drained the coolant (I was changing my oil cooler too). When I finished all the work I refilled the cooling system and changed the oil. After a few hundred miles of driving to make sure everything was working as expected I changed my oil just to be sure I didn't have any contamination.

I would also recommend vacuuming out your cylinders to prevent hydro-locking the engine.

More should be along to post with far greater knowledge than I have.

 

I second the tech folder search. Theres a lot of info there. Hours and hours of reading and gleaning. The only specifics id say, drain your oil, before even turning the engine over, its contaminated, drain your coolant, and, if you dont have a shop vac, you can drain the cylinders through the gp holes when your going back together. Happy reading, good luck, ask questions if you get confused.

 

I removed all 4 injectors on the drivers side and it started to pour out and i quickly drained the radiator to slow it down . I assume where the injector tip sits is where a decent amount of coolant went .i don’t want it to hydro lock because as it sits before removing valve cover it wouldn’t turn on easily .it would take me about 10 minutes of cranking to get some kind of startup on it and it would shut off. How could I get that coolant out before I start the passenger side injector cups .im changing a lot of things to save me the trouble 8 injector cups ,orings ,glow plugs, coolant ,oil ,valve cover gasket, reservoir. Also want to know what the difference in color on injector tips meant if it has any meaning at all i need to fix it .

 

If you drained the radiator you shouldnt have any fluid left on the passenger side. Your engine wont hydrolock, just sitting there, even with coolant in the cylinder. You would have to put everything back together without getting the fluid out to hydrolock it. There are several things that could lead to your needing 10 minutes to get the truck to start. And while injectors could be part of that, id wonder more about oil pressure, followed by fuel. Id recommend getting a camera and looking in each cylinder while you have it open. Post pictures, lets try to make sure you arent dealing with a bigger issue..

 

Im looking at local prices for a camera .is it possible to drain out the cylinders with a small hose in the injector hole and vacuum it out ,I would assume I should get everything I can possibly take out so it wouldn’t block the injector tip

 

Yes that is about the simplest way to go. Also before you put the valve covers on pull all the glow plugs and crank the engine over a few times. In your case I would probably go a round or 2 by hand with a rachet on the crank bolt just to be safe. Then you can bump the starter once or twice to blow out any leftovers.

 

Definitely crank a few rotations by hand before doing it with the key (make sure the UVCHs or 42-pin is disconnected so they truck doesn't really try to start).

I drained everything, sucked all cylinders as dry as possible, and did several rotations of hand-crank to clear the cylinders before some "dry" starts to finish it off before putting things back together.

This leaves lots of air in the systems so it will take some time when you go to start it up for the first time. Make sure your batteries are charged up as you will have several rounds for cranking and resting before it finally pushes all the air out to build pressure and start. It helps to be able to monitor the parameters for the engine to start so you can see how things are going (post #32):

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...l#post18371593

With all of that OCD I was able to get the truck to start in relatively short order. After several short 30-second start "bursts" (followed by a few minutes of rest) the truck sputtered to life (post #20):

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...l#post17810730

 

update had 2 cracked injector cups but I believe my isssue is my head gasket added new coolant and tried cranking didn’t start it leaks from driver side header or dripping on to it haven’t checked well ,noticed it at like 10pm. Any simple diagnosis to make sure ?

 

If coolant drained into the cylinders then anything you weren't able to suck out before cranking the engine went out the exhaust. So the possibility of exhaust manifold leaking some of that is high. What was your start procedure? After having the injectors out it usually takes 2-3 tries of cranking 10-15 seconds each. That's if you made sure the hpop reservoir was full first. If not could take 4-5 tries.

 

after putting everything back together I charged my batteries cranked it and it was behaving like before I took it apart cranks tries to start but doesn’t still noticed white smoke .white smoke also comes from the engine bay even before I took it apart so that makes me thing the gasket is the main problem

 

Do you have Forscan or another means of monitoring engine PID's? Before condemning anything and tearing back into it I suggest getting a look at ICP to confirm you're getting pressure to fire the injectors. Obviously I'm not seeing what you're seeing but so far everything you're describing sounds like normal behavior after having the injectors out. The first time I swapped a set of injectors my truck looked like a friggin fog machine once I got it fired up it smoked out an entire city block just idling. I've since learned some preventative steps to minimize the hard starting and smoke but they are still somewhat inevitable. I'm not saying your wrong, but I will say these engines almost never have head gasket issues. The only thing I know of that will cause it is getting them hot, real hot. Hotter than 2 chicks making out hot.

 

As udsuth78 mentioned, make sure you are meeting all the requirements for the injectors to fire before you jump down a different rabbit hole.

From the post I linked earlier:

Our trucks are old and mostly mechanical. Compared to the newer software process where the cars boot up more than they start up, our start sequence is fairly straight-forward - turn key, wait for WTS light to go out, start the truck.

There are plenty of troubleshooting threads (posted or updated almost daily) on this but, for some reason, it's hard to find what actually needs to happen to start the truck. That being said there are some specific parameters that the PCM is looking for before it gives the green light to the IDM to fire the injectors and bring the big block to life (these are all minimums while cranking):

1. Engine RPM - 100
2. Injection Control Pressure (ICP) - 500 psi
3. Injection Pulse Width (PW) - 0.6 ms
4. Volts - 7-10 VDC

There are nuiances between years but these are the four basic things your truck PCM needs to see while cranking before the IDM gets the go ahead to start injecting fuel.

Note: The 0.6ms pulse width requirement indicates that the PCM and IDM are talking and not an indication of actual pulse width. If the PW was 0.0ms then the IDM did not answer when the PCM called so it left a voicemail telling the IDM there will be no injection action this round.

If you are not getting those 4 parameters the injectors will not fire no matter what you do.

 

it does have a tuner some people hate them some don’t ,me personally don’t like them to many problems I like it original based on what I read of the forums they just cause problems after I get running I will probably remove the tuner .Never had these types of issues with my other 7.3 with 350,000 miles and it all original except the suspension

 

Forscan isn't a tuner it is a diagnostics software, like a scan tool. It's an app that's free to download for Windows laptop, or I think $6 for Android or Apple devices. From there you need a dongle that plugs into the OBD2 port on the truck and connects to whatever device you're using. Not all dongles work but there's a list of compatible one in the info. With all of that up and running you have access to everything a ford tech at a dealership has. All the code reading, all the self test available, and all the sensor data. If the PCM sees it you'll be able to see it.