This forum saves me so much money . The stealership here wants 66 $ for the valve and 130.00 to install. Think I'll order the orings and do it myself . This is on top of the 900$. to replace the glow plugs and relay at 20$ apiece for glow plugs and 140$ for relay plus labor. Funny I had already talked to their supplier they only wanted 8$ for the plugs and 40 $ for the relay . Thanks all for saving me money again .

 

Well I got mine (o'rings) in the mail today, 1 hour later , NO MORE LEAKS , yee haaa!....the biggest problem I had was getting the valve loose from the drain tube (no room).thanks everyone

 

I had a leak with similar symptoms and it turned out to be the o-rings on the drain valve. I had the good people at Colorado Diesel fix mine (they have a heated garage ) but they have seen a lot of these recently and put it down to the ultra low sulfur diesel introduced last year. Most people don't seem to think ULSD will affect injector seals though.

 

Greetings All! I just wanted to take a moment and say thank you VERY much for all of the info... A couple of days ago, I was doing some errands and noticed that my F350 was leaking something... I freaked out when I realized that it was Diesel Fuel! I was in a grocery store parking lot and it was Sunday, so I tried isolating the problem, and noticed that the gas would leak when I turned the key to the "wait to start" position... if the truck was off, no diesel leaked... I noticed a tube from the passenger side wheel well hole that was actually leaking the fuel...

I went out, bought a Haynes manual, chilton's online manual, and couldn't find anything... I was sure that this tube must connect to something, but could not find where it connected to... I couldn't even find the name of the part I was looking at!

I found this forum and did the separator drain valve replacement thing... I say thing because while I own a construction company, I don't know the first thing about mechanics. With everyone's guidance, and some time (about 5 hours), I was able to remove the turbo diesel cover, take off the 4-T20 screws, replace the O-rings (with fuel rated O-rings), put the drain valve and yellow handle thing back, and even though I still can't figure out why it worked, it did!!! I did this in the parking lot of the grocery store, not only saving myself a huge repair bill, but a huge towing bill as my F350 is lifted.

Thank You once again for helping me solve this problem, and getting my interest peaked in toying with my truck!

R.J. - 1999 F350, Crew Cab, 7.3L Diesel, Dually, Lift Kit, Banks Package

 

From the date of the last post, it seems that no one is having trouble with their fuel bowl valve, except me. I ordered some o-rings from McMaster Carr but I don't really need 25. If anyone needs a couple, send me an email and I'll mail them out to you. I just did thirty unnecessary miles because the NAPA parts guy lied to me. I called for the o-rings and he said "yeah, we have them". Big fat LIAR!!!

Thanks to Pop and everyone that pointed me in the right direction with this thread. This forum is awesome.

Jim.

 

I'm of the opinion that the leaks are not caused by torn o-rings, so much as grit getting caught underneath the o-rings.
I've had a drip or two before and fixed it by cycling the valve several times.

 

I cycled the valve so many times, I think I wore the o-rings out. Oh well, if the o-rings are still good, consider a stocking stuffer for the truck. It's been good to me, what's a couple of o-rings and a GPR and...

Jim.

 

This is such a common prroblem I don't know why Ford doesn't recall it.

All it is going to take is one vehicle fire where someone gets burned (Heaven forbid) and they'll lose any saving they claim by ignoring an obvios problem.

 

I just replaced the two o-rings and cleaned everything before reinstalling the valve. BUT if you really want to totally overhaul the valve, you should replace the smaller o-ring that seals the internal ball assembly from the outer housing. Only if I had known about it, I would have ordered some of those too. Instead, I cleaned it and squirted it with some carb cleaner to make it swell up a little. so far so good. BTW, those two o-rings were as flat as a pancake.

Jim.

 

Jim, I got the o-rings in the mail today. I figure I will tackle this project tomorrow with a hangover. Thanks!!!

 

Here is a good link for repair and replacement.

http://home.centurytel.net/sabre/drainvalve.html

 

I finally had to do it, only problem is, is that I still have a leak.

I took my time and made sure everything was put back together snug.

If it makes any difference, my gaskets where not flat, cracked or torn.

Any other suggestions?

 

Did you pull the inner part out from the valve body? It comes out if you twist it and line up the flat sides. I cleaned the o-ring in there too. I should have taken pictures. Duh.

Jim.

 

I did not. I spun it around a couple of times and cleaned it up, but did not pull it apart.

 

I would pul it all apart. That's where mine was leaking from. It turned out to be a lot of grit, even under the o-ring. I'll bet you two new o-rings that it will stop the leak by cleaning inside the valve.

Jim.