I recently purchased a 2000 superduty 7.3. I took the great information on this site and changed the injectors myself saving a pile of money. Thanks guys.
I now am noticing that when I start the truck up it puffs white(ish) smoke until it is warm. The truck also takes allot of cranking to get started. I replaced the starter and both batteries but it is still slow to start. All the glow plugs checked out when I did the injectors. This truck has had a tough life by the look of it.
What does white smoke mean, and what are the common symptoms of hard starting?

 

Welcome to FTE bdonaldson.
Did it smoke before you did the injector job?
If not then something went wrong with that job, whether it be a bruised o-ring from being too pinched to something didn't go right when they rebuilt the injectors, to possibly one of the copper o-rings on the bottom of the injectors didn't get properly crushed and it's leaking. I would remove the valve covers again and make sure that everything is properly torqued down as a start. You may have to pull all the injectors out again to review what went wrong.

 

It smoked like this before and started even harder before the injectors replacement. Does white smoke mean oil is being burnt?

 

I have a buddy with the same problem on his 95 PSD. He's been asking me about for a while but I wast to sure. I would really like to know. It would be nice if it were just orings or a simple fix like that.

 

Did you verify that all eight glow plugs were good? All it takes is one burned out plug in a set of eight to make a pretty good sized cloud.

 

will the cloud continue for a few minutes or is it just on the initial start up?

 

The first and easiest thing to check is the glow plug relay. Pick one up at NAPA for $24. White smoke + hard start = glow plug system. The white smoke is unburnt fuel at idle.

 

It will continue for a few minutes until the cylinders heat up. The colder the weather is the longer it takes to heat up and clear out. REALLY cold weather and it will never clear out unless you work the engine - if you can get it started without the benefit of the glow plugs heat.

 

Thanks guys, I will check the glow plug system. It also starts very hard when it is cold so a glow plug problem makes sense. I sure hope that is what it is.