Looks like this ladies and gentlemen. Sold truck, perfect. Ran like a jewel. They left the sale in the truck with the fuel light on, rolled to the pump at a local station, put in about 2 gallons, then drove about 45 miles before filing up. Now, the truck would not get up to speed, and rough idle. So fuel filter was changed, and no result from that. This truck was perfect fellows, less than 100k, on a 2001 PSD. Any ideas?

 

how low was the fuel to start with? a powerstroke can not run for 45 miles on two gallons of fuel, downhill. fill the tank up and cycle the fuel pump a few times. then start it and let it idle for a few minutes. then drive it around to put a load on the engines. any air that has gotten past the fuel bowl outlet has to be pushed out through the injectors. probably the reason it is running rough/not at all is because of air in the system. it will work itself out at the cost of the health of the injectors.

 

Exactly. Never run a 7.3 below quarter of a tank or suffer the consequences built in by design. Gonna have to drive the air out.

 

unless you have some super way to route that air back to the tank

 

I can't testify to this statement. More than once on a long trip I have stretched 38.5 gallons to 850 miles, real nervous for the final 75, but with no adverse affects. Knock on wood.

 

that is probably because you were travelling at a constant speed, where the fuel wasn't sloshing around the tank much, and it was sitting pretty calmly around the pickup foot, and little chances for air to get in. stop and go driving that low, you would get some drivability problems.


oh, and damn! 22mpg? downhill with a tailwind?

 

Not gonna say it happens every time but it can happen. Why tempt the fates? Remember, he said they drove off with the low fuel light on.

Now that magic air elimination system for me is a quasi baffled sump and manual bleed system on my dead end return system. Even then, I never run lower than 1/4 tank.

 

did the wife ever wonder where the sink strainer went?

 

Nope, but she sure notices that skid plate sitting under the carport because it's not yet back on. Bought a boat and have been spending a lot of time and resources on that lately, not to mention fishing and just puttering around. Gonna get that back on soon, but deer hunting season is around the corner, and I do all of my 4wheeling with my atv when needed so not a priority. Who cares about that skid plate?