1999 f250 7.3 PSD w/ 180,000mi Last week harmonic balancer went out while driving, serp belt came off and parked on road side. Pryed pulley on balancer back forward enough for the belt to stay on 1/2mile back to the house. Replaced harmonic balancer, refilled radiator with plain water(had to remove radiator to replace balancer) and tried to crank it.

Starter engaged but wouldn't turn the engine over. Kept hitting the starter until it finally turned over and started with a puff of white smoke. Never seen any smoke until that time. Drove around the block and when I tried to start it again, same thing. This kept happening but when it started is ran perfect and sounded fine. Didn't happen every time, but each time it was hard to crank, I got that puff of white smoke. Had to keep hitting the starter until it would break free enough to crank. Replaced both batteries, cables and starter.

No help. Replace the starter 3 more times (all reman crap from autozone, it's possible they could have all been bad), no help. Installed new Denso heavy duty 4kw starter and engine cranked but with bad noise. Turned the key off and tried to crank again and this new starter wouldn't even turn it over. But when I tried I heard that same noise again and haven't tried again. I've put around 1500 miles on it since this started and its ran fine just really hard to get turned over intermittently.

Please tell me what's wrong with this thing.

 

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Sounds like the engine is hydro-locking. Although there are other possible causes, it may be bad injector o-rings causing coolant to get into a cylinder. It can cause serious engine damage, so don't wait to get it fixed.

 

at first i thought bad injector orings. but seeing how you have a lot of white smoke after a hard start up i am wondering if one of your injectors is staying open(not sure if it's possible but). i wouldn't try to run it much. if it were me the vc's would be coming off. and then pulling the glow plugs then having someone crank while you watch to see what you got.

 

Antifreeze will make a lot of white smoke, too. I concur on the hydrolocking. Pretty surpising that losing the front pulley would be cause, though.

 

yeah wondering about that harmonic balancer coming off they dont come off very easy. what did you pry against to get the pully back on? could have damaged main bearings when prying. or if could have pushed the oil pump into the front cover and thats what your hearing grinding and not turning. coolant cant get into cylinders from bad orings. a injector cup would have to be cracked for that to happen. id pull the VC's and the glow plugs see how it cranks then. you can see if its pushing a bunch of fluid out the gp ports when you do that. then check piston clearance to see if it bent a rod if it did hydrolock.

 

Valve cover on driver side pulled, small water dropletts on #4,6,8 glow plugs. About to go pull passenger side and check them. At this point it is looking like a water problem. I know very little about these engines so please let me know how to proceed. Thanks for the advise.

 

Pull the glow plugs and see how it cranks. Like bareback said, possibly a injector oring/cup???

 

well if you just changed your oil you could tell if the motor is hydro-locked or not. It wasnt bout a month ago that it happened to me. Blown Head gasket and very pricey job if you let ford do it. And if you wanna do it, it is a PITA!

 

Pulled all the glow plugs and cranked it over a couple of times. About 1 to 1.5 cups of water came out of #5. My guess is blown head gasket. Turning it over didn't produce any strange/bad noises, so hopefully I haven't bent a rod. Nothing came out of any of the other cylinders thankfully. I have stripped it down now to the point that I just need a helper to pull the head. Once I get inside I'll be able to see more of what happened.

 

i doubt the injector cup. sounds like blown head gasket

 

i don't know exactly how the injector cups are set up. but i would think the copper washer that seals the compression out would be leaking too and i doubt that would be the case. i would vote for a gasket or cracked head. hope its just a gasket since it will be cheaper for you. keep us posted. BTW if your engine ever cranks as described above don't keep driving it. hydro locked deisels will self destruct very quickly.

 

Well folks, it was a blown head gasket. Now that I know what the major problem was, is there anything else I should do since I already have it torn apart this far? Don't want to go through this again anytime soon for something simple I could take care of now.

 

I've heard that the injector cups are a weak spot. I would get them replaced. Somebody who knows more about this please confirm, though.

 

Here is just a suggestion: It is always advisable to take the head in and get it milled...or at least make sure it does not need it. Just about any time you remove a head; it needs to be milled or could cause more problems down the line. This is just a rule of thumb here...