i've actually heard that biodiesel might aleive some of the white smoke. has lots of oxygen on it's own and lubricates a lot. I was wanting to try and make it for the truck. but i will probably rework the fuel system at some point with a hutch mod, trash that cr@p coupler, mayber a closed loop, who knows, they sound like good ideas. Currently #2 diesel is what the pumps in my area carry. still smoking as I ran around today but starting when warm is still ok (longer than I'd like, but it works), seems like I fell a surge or hesitation just above idle while in gear going down the road. maybe fuel issue as well, or cps. don't know if the cps has ever been replaced on that truck, just replaced vss. may just be time, think this next month I'll get a 6637 kwik wix to replace to broke stock filter box. think I got the mod bug after reading the forums last couple of days.
Chad

 

Biodiesel is great for the engine and injectors.
Broken air box? What do the fins on your turbo look like? Nice and sharp on the leading edge, or more similar to a lawn mower blade?

 

kod,
went out in the middle of the night (i was already up, removed forward intake tube between air cleaner and ccv vent section and sighted camera down it for turbo, fins don't look to particularly sharp, and there are signs of chipping, pic follows, don't know if the focus was perfect but should give idea.



Could a bad turbo wheel cause the smoking? The intake hose was not on the filter housing correctly, which i just corrected, and I don't know how long one side of the housing has been half open due to breakage, I at least resecured it with a bungee till I can get a 6637. If this looks horrible that might explain a few things. seems like my reduction of smoking has hit a slowdown or stall, maybe it's just the turbo wheel. yeah? let me know what you think.
Chad

 

Yikes, I was afraid of that.
This is what is commonly called a "dusted" turbo. It happens when there is a leak in the air intake system and it allows dust and grit to get around the air cleaner and into the intake. That same dust and grit will abrade anything that it comes into contact with. The compressor wheel is the first victim, and the piston rings, valve guides, cylinder walls being the next. It causes acclorated wear on those components and then the engine starts to lose compression.
Diesels are very sensitive to compression loss becuase they rely on thier very high compression ratio to superheat the air in the combustion chamber. The temperature required needs to be more than hot enough to ignite the diesel fuel as it's injected into this superheated charge. When the diesel engine starts to lose compression, then that temperature thresh hold is not reached and the symptoms are very difficult to start a cold engine, even with glow plugs that are working. And there will be large clouds of white smoke coming out of the tailpipe. Engine fully warmed up, the starts are much easier due to the extra heat that is in the engine.
Your description of symptoms for your truck closely match this scenario and the picture you provided is a good comfirmation. I VERY HIGHLY recommend that you get some compression readings. I don't know the exact numbers you should see on a Powerstroke, but I can give you some minimum numbers for VW diesels, which I work on every day.
A good VW diesel engine will easily make a minimum of 425 psi with 435-450 being very good
It needs a minumum of 400 psi to easily start in the winter.
Get down to 375 and it's very hard to start, even in warm weather and all the glow plugs working. It will produce huge clouds of fuel smoke and sound like a gas engine with a stuck choke until the cylinders warm up enough to easily fire the fuel. At 375 psi that usually takes less than 60 seconds.
350 psi, you have to drag the car behind a truck to get it to run.
Below that, forget it.
A VW diesel's compression ratio is around 20:1 and the PSD is 17.5:1 so your numbers will be slightly lower, but not by much. The pistons are much bigger for the PSD and there is less of a leakdown ratio past the rings.
I can't emphasize enough the requirement for good compression for a diesel to start easily and run good.
Hope this helps.

 

buzz kill,
not what I wanted to hear. =0) oh well, do i need a compression guage for diesels to read that high a pressure? also if it fails the compression test then what needs to happen. pull the engine and have a ring job / valve job done? is it possible the block would need machining, like is cylinder wear a problem as well. how much is this gonna cost me, to give me an idea. thanks for the help.
chad

 

oh man, i hope its ok. good thing you only paid 4500 for the truck cuz this could get expensive. you can find a good used motor for anywhere between 2-4k. I have seen low mileage ones complete with turbo and all sell on ebay for $4500 + freight. Here is a crate one on ebay: 8058869726

Keep us informed and we hope the best for you and your truck. When can you post some pictures of her?

 

got some pictures of the exhaust that I'm having trouble getting off the camera.....wait a minute just figured it out, took a second, it's new software i'm not use to. anyways, got to looking at the exhaust real close today. btw no problems starting today, well other than the fact it's not instant, but with 200K on it, i'm not surprised. it will cold start fine now as well as warm start. enough for me to be happy with anyways. now here's where it gets weird, no white smoke cold, after 30secs it starts smoking, does so at idle, not at speed, but will smoke when i put down the accel pedal. that sounds strangely like the post that mech put up about turbo seals. yeah? if so, any know a good source for seal parts, or should I shuck it out to a turbo shop. remember this truck was beat when I got it, so I have no concerns about "keeping it mint" like I do my mustangs. This one has already had antenna holes drilled (which is good cause I'm a ham operator) and the bed beat to hell which saves me the wory of a rhino liner, not a flat enough bed to worry about lining. the point is, I'll tackle anything short of pulling the engine. and I hold off on that because I don't have picker/A-frame or stand, especially for this large of a vehicle. Let me know how hard it would be for a DIY job and maybe parts availability. btw here's a rear pick for the exhaust.

 

That smoke looks blueish to me which is normally oil. This is a stupid question but have you changed the fuel filter. If the fuel system was that dirty all the addetives may be cleaning it out and plugging up your filter. This will also cause hard starting. Good luck

 

And I can offer some good news as well. If the starting has become easier, that tells me that your engine is in better shape than I earlier believed. If you truly have a worn out engine, the starting difficulty would not change. Worn out piston rings don't heal themselves.
So now I'm with some of the others here; change your oil, oil filter, fuel filter, and even the air filter for good measure, and go drive the fuel out of your tank to nearly empty. Get a container of Diesel Kleen or Stanadyne, add it to the tank in the correct amount, fill it back up, and drive it for a while.
Then see how it starts up the next morning. I'm betting it will be much improved. If all goes well, then go ahead and fix the turbo.

 

well fuel and oil filters are new, less than 1 or 2 weeks. and I've got diesel power (diesel kleens brother that is an all in 1) in the tank. I'lll probably try to get the tank low so I can do some fuel mods, like a hutch mod and removal of coupler, some time this next month and clean it out real good. will probably put in a kwik wix filter while I'm at it. do you think the continual smoking may be an oil problem, ccv, dirty intercooler, turbo seals? i pressumed it was white smoke due to the heavy disel smell. maybe it's not. from looking at the pictures does that apear to be white smoke or blue. I'm doing the standard stuff for the engine, oil, filters and all. only filter not changed so far is air, will happen next month. at the time I didn't worry about it cause the factory box was shot and leaking and re-assembled wrong, but after talking about the turbo, I put it back together to seal better, and it seems that I've had lots of stuttering around 1500RPM +- 100-200. I pressumed it was my really clogged filter element. will find out for sure after pay day. let me know what you think about potential oil problems and what to look for. also refer to my turbo pic and let me know if that pooling of oil infront of turbine blades is normal for regualr ccv exhaust. thanks.
Chad
99 f350 7.3 psd auto cc lb, stock

 

I'd still replace the fuel filter after you run through a few tanks....for good measure.

 

I very muchly agree with wolftan. The fuel addetive as i said earlier will be cleaning things out and clogging the new filter. As for the turbo your turbine wheel is toast!!! I would pull the turbo and install a new wicked wheel. You can check for worn seal than. Can you wiggle the shaft that the wheel is on side to side or up and down. Excessive play means bad things are happeneing to your turbo. This may also be part of your stumbling problem in the lower rpm range. I would also check the fuel filter. Did i say that already!? In my oppinion the smoke in the photo is blue. I would think oil which could very well be coming from your turbo! Hope this helps!!

 

well good news on the smoke front. the truck had a period today where there was almost no smoke, just a haze. happened while putting some highway miles at 70mph for about 45 minutes. it stayed smoke free for 10-15 minutes afterward. don't know if that tells you guys anything. I've got a lot of the fuel run out of the tank and given low funds at the end of the month, it will stay low =0). I'll clean the tank and probably do some fuel mods after first of month. I'll check the fuel filter again I know the filter I pulled like last week might as well been made of dirt given it's color. but given all that I think I'm roughly around 14 mpg right now, was 12mpg after first getting it running, must be doing something right.

 

I'm glad to hear things are turning around for you. Keep us posted on how your making out.

 

I am watching this post as I am having the same problems. I bought my truck off ebay last fall with some problems that I have sorted out and repaired except for hard starts and white smoke. My truck started all winter even at 11 below not plugged in. Yesterday at 72 degrees it just cranked and poured white smoke. It sounded like it was trying to start but didn't until just a small shot of starting fluid. Then it started right up still smoking white with a strong fuel smell. When the hood was up and It started white smoke came from up there also. If it sets just 2 days this is what it does. Seems to stark OK if I use it every day but still smokes for a few minutes. I haven't looked at my turbo and my truck seems to be down on power compared to a friends truck. Does this sound like your fix will fix mine also? I really don't know what to do. I have even considered selling it but really would rather fix it because I really like the truck.