Hello all,

Need some help...............this truck is about to drive me to drink.

History......Stock with no mods 160,000 miles, bought it with 9000 miles and has always ran great with no major problems till recently, rotella oil usually changed about 4500-5000 miles.

The original issue. Hard starting when cold, white smoke till it warmed up, but ran great after starting .....I replaced the glow plugs,selenoid and the cam sensor. Still had the same problem.

Talked to the mechanics at the international shop in town and they suggested to replace the o-rings on the injectors, possibly leaking down and losing fuel pressure....... Did that today, now the truck is now hard to start period. It takes at least three try's on the starter to get it to fire now, almost like it is building the fuel pressure back up???????? Once it does start it seems to run fine.....until I turn it off and then it does the same thing over....three try's or more on the starter before she'll run again.

The injectors did have some minor carbon build up on the tips but nothing really significant. There was some tarnish on the injector body right below the second o-ring from the tip. again not major build up but there was a small amount.

I went back and check the fuel rail plugs on the back of the heads and they were tight, as were the fuel lines, I never loosened them until I was trying to fire it back up after replacing the o-rings. I did get some air there initially but it cleared after a few cycles of the starter and then I had solid fuel.

Any help that you guys can provide would be great. I am trying to do this myself and most of my experiance is with gas motors. Anyone near the Augusta Ga area I would gladly accept a helping hand troubleshooting. I want to learn this, since ford wants six prices to work on these trucks.

 

I've got most of my experience in the 99 1/2 - 2003 model years. So I'll ask a question or two.....I'll tell you what I would check on the years mentioned......then you can see what applies to your 97. And I'm sure you will get other feedback too.
1. Does your truck have a mechanical fuel pump?......If it's electric...you should have fuel at the rail almost as soon as you turn the key on.
2. Have you had the fuel pressure checked?......On mine, it's around 60 psi.......your's may be 45 -50 psi.
If you've got no fuel for awhile while your cranking.....these are the first things I'd check.
There will other views along shortly. I hope this helps.

 

Need to know if once you get the PSD cranked and run long enough for the temp to come up to normal temps, will it start right up from then on? If it doesn't matter how warm the motor is, it still takes several times to get the motor to start, long as you have good batterys on the truck and the starter is crankin on the motor as it should at the right speed; I would sure check the fuel pressure as mentioned. Those motors in stock form should have at least 40 PSI.

If you want to check that, you can read the pressure at the schrader valve on the drivers side of the filter housing. Just have to use a good fluid filled guage to read the pressure while the motor is running. Just don't use a tire guage and rely on that reading so much.

The other thing would be to make sure you have good strong batterys on the truck and that the starter is crankin over like it should. You get weak batterys or a bad starter that drags a little, the PSD's just don't fire off like they should. They can just have dirty battery connections too. I like to use electrical grease on the clean connections.

Something else I like to do once every two years is to unhook both batterys at the same time and leave them off for about 10 minutes. Then clean the battery posts and cable ends and grease them and put them back together. This dumps the PSD's running habbits it has stored and makes it resort to a default setting and starts over on it memory for running habbits.

 

hello grizzly just becam a member today! and have been trying help guys out with troubles. I am a ford trained mechanic withh acces to TSB's up to 2000. First of when you change injector "o" rings you should only do one at a time and then roll the engine over by hand. the oil that will leak out of the galley into the cylinder can easily cause the connecting rod to bend,I have seen it many times.they are like butter and the starter will overide compression and bend these. When I would do an "O" ring r&r if there was more than one (usually do the whole set) I would do one bank at a time and with the injectors out(but lubed and ready to roll in I would crank the engine over to blow out the oil.(This makes a huge mess if you dont have plastic and carboard over the holes. I would have a fellow tech crank the engine and IMMEDIATLY install the injectors then crank the engine over by hand. Now to you problem! I'm assuming you dont have access to a scan tool. The pcm(powertrain control module) will not let the engine open the injectors if it does not see a minimum oil pressure of 600psi. The sending unit that informs the PCM of this is called an ICP (injection pressure control) sensor. Be advised that at higher rpms the injectors may be operating under pressures as high as 3000psi !. The icp is located on the driver side head at the front,tilted inwards at about a 45 degree angle. Some times if just the sensor is bad you can disconnect this and the engine should start. If not you will have to verify oil pressure at the galley oil connections.I have seen many 7.3"s require high pressure oil pumps to be replaced.(and once had FOUR BAD FORD REMANS IN A ROW!) talk about confusion! I have also had to replace all eight injectors on trucks that were way overfreighted and over worked. If you have a tandem fuel pump(works off the cam directly and can be seen behind the fuel bowl middle engine) those also are known to go bad. AND SOMETIMES the problem with these is that the plunger or piece that rides off the cam(looks like a valve out of a valve train)is broken and if your not carefull this piece will fall into the engine when removing the pump. If that happens just make sure that piece makes it alll the way down to the oil pan by pokin and prodding until you can verify that it tis in the oil pan with a magnet or something. It wont harm any thing. And yes you can clear learned pcm strategies by battery disconnect. The white smoke is most likely due to your turbo comming apart and blowing smoke right out the exhaust ALSO robbing oil pressure to the injectors. Hope that helps gmentum@peoplepc.com

 

Touchofgrey, I will get me a gauge and run the check on the fuel pressures, thanks.

Rowdyone, It seems to have the same problem after it warms up.

Before I pulled the injectors for r&r, it would start fine the rest of the day once it fired off in the morning. The batteries are fine they were replaced a while back but I have not had any problems with them and the motor is cranking fine it just won't fire off and run until about the third or fourth time you try to start it.

I will check the pressure on the schrader valve and see what I am getting there, and also pull the battery connections. Once I disconnect the batteries it will dump any codes correct? If I do end up taking this to the dealer to fix should it pick them back up so they can read them with their scanner.

gmentum I drained the oil gallery and the fuel rails on both sides like the destructions suggested, yes the fuel plugs on the back of the heads are a pain in the @##. I went back and checked them to make sure I had them tight and no leaks there.

I will unhook the icp today and see if that helps .

Other than the starting problem it runs fine once you can get it started. So I don't think there is anything serious in the engine or turbo wrong. It still has good power and runs strong as ever.

Thanks to all for giving me a place to start checking. I'll keep you posted on what I find.

 

Have you allowed enough time for the giant air bubble in the HPOP galley to clear? That would explain the hard start, long cranking time to recompress the air bubble back down enough to build up the 500 psi required to start.
Hmmm, those guys that make that spiffy new HX line might be able to add a high pressure valve for bleeding purposes. Or make a bleeding valve for installing in a vacant HPOP galley plug.

 

I need to add that if a bleeding valve becomes a reality somehow, that oil coming out at 500 psi will cut your skin deep!

 

I did get it fired up yesterday and ran it for a couple of miles. I am heading out in a minute to see what it is going to do this morning.

 

Just came in from the truck and it took four 20-30 second cranks on the starter to get it to pop once. It started on the fifth try.

There are about four brass plugs on the top of each head on the outside just above the valve cover bolts, are those drains for the fuel rail or is that the oil galley running across there. Is it possible to vent are air trapped in the system there....just asking?

 

yes! watch out for oil when cranking with injectors out!, Thats why I cover the holes in plastic topped with cardboard

 

Can I crack those plugs open and crank the engine over with the injectors in.

I was thinking that maybe a way to get any air trapped in there out?

 

If your talking about the galley plugs on the ends of the heads 1+" in diameter I would'nt try it had'nt heard of it. however known one knows every f-ing thing, The manual has you open up the little tiny ones just under the rocker cover, however that never worked for me once. You could try to open slightly the oil feed lines to the heads and crank the engine over by hand,but I have never seen airation bad enought to cause a long crank poss no start. Thats the frustrating thing about those 7.3's,, its more oil pressure and fuel or sensory or harness or pcm and or Idm than with a gas engine ,,(fuel or fire). Let me know how your making out. Need clues,facts. Gotta be a detective!

 

Have you checked the oil level in the HPOP reservoir? It should be less than an inch below the top. If the level is good you can ignore the rest of this. If it is not it will take lots of cranking to get the level up so the HPOP can pressurize enough to start the engine. It's possible that the check valve is leaking. The check valve is located under a round plug immediately behind the driver side of the HPOP reservoir in the valley. The plug has a 3/8" socket recess in it. You need a long extension and a universal joint to get at it.

If the valve is leaking these are the part numbers for a '96 F250. You might want to verify that they will work for a '97 if you have to order.

o-ring F6TZ-6674-A
Ball F6TZ-6674-B
Seat F6TZ-6674-C

Good luck. Let us know what you find out.

 

The truck seems to be running better now, I put some miles on it and it may have just been air in the oil and fuel galleys. That is the only explaination that I can come up with for it. The more that I drive it the better it seems to start.

I will keep you all posted if it continues to improve or what. Thanks for all of the input that you all had. It helps to have some other heads thinking about some of these problems.