hi have been seeing alot of harness changeouts on this board. have done searches on it and cant find out why do they burn up?connectors go bad .and whats causing this ?PART TWO i am weighing out pros and cons of buying a 1995 f-350 psd auto 4x4 dually 170k .for $12000 is there a good auto trans and a bad one? the dealer has no history on this truck it does have a 5th wheel pin in the bed so we know its worked in its 170k but with a 1ton rear i think it should be o.k. as long as the tranny has been serviced ,any input ?thanks rick

 

Ya Rick, what you want to look for is whether they installed a larger trans cooler on the radiator. The 94-97 PSD had a puny little waste of a cooler as it came stock. If they haven't replaced it you can bet it was getting really hot. next drive it and feel how it shifts. If it shifts realy smooth then it doesnt have a shift kit and you know it was getting hot. I just bought a newer 99.5 psd and am learning the hard way. I have to rebuild the tranny next week They used a E4OD in al those early powerstrokes so the trans is going to basically be the same. Pull the trans dip stick out and smell it. If it smells burnt thats an indicator. I think $12000 is pretty high for that year and that many miles. Hope this helps.

 

Sounds a little high to me. I'd look around a little more.

 

I assume you mean the injector wiring harness. The problem is almost always caused by the glow plug circuit. (rare cases where the harness wasn't installed properly, and rubbed on a push rod have been documented). The problem is that International undersized the wiring and especially the valve gasket connectors for the glow plug circuit.

The glow plugs have only a very small amount of resistance when cold (maybe about 1-2 ohms) and although the resistance increases somewhat as the plug heats up, the amp draw is still much higher then the itty bitty little valve gasket connector pin can handle if there is even a small amount of resistance at this connection. Any resistance at this connector results in heat being generated, which increases the resistance as the connection degrades which results in more heat.

It doesn't take long for plastic around the connector pin and wire insulation to melt. Ergo, now you need a new harness and valve cover gasket. This is if you are lucky. Worse is if the bad connection was outside the the valve gasket, and the wire harness leading to gasket is damaged. This is harder to fix, and this harness is very spendy. It can be fixed by replacing the pins, etc, which apparently are available from International.

Reducing the frequency and length of time the glow plugs are energized will do a great deal to reduce this problem. For some reason, the glow plugs remain powered (at least on the earlier PSDs) for quite some time after the WTS light goes off, even after the truck is already started and running. I suppose it helps to reduce emissions, but I don't think there is any reason to have them on after the truck is running. I installed a toggle switch the allows me to control precisely when the glow plugs are powered, and allows me to shut them off so they don't cycle again each time the truck is started (which they normally would, even when the engine is warm, at least on a 96)

 

got to test drive it today,ran stong shifted strong the tranny cooler looked up graded took the hose off the turbo checked for oil only had a lite dry film of it ,the lifter valley looked dry as well BUT i checked the dipstick on the tranny and the fluid smelled bad (burnt)and the this truck has a auxilary fuel tank with some kind of amoniter system .for all three tanks on a seperate led read out and makes the guage on the dash read empty all the time didnt like that at all ,to top it off they said the 12000 deal was on another truck they wouldnt come off 14000 on this one i said good luck selling that thing thanks for the advise