Hello everyone,
I just purchased my first Powerstroke, Its a 2001 F350 crew cab, 8ft box, 4x4 auto with 73,000 miles. I've had the truck approx 3 weeks and love it so far. A couple of days ago I started to notice a tapping sound at idle and it appears to be coming from the left side of the engine from what I can tell. It seems to be louder at times and other times hardly noticable. This is my first diesel so any info would be greatly appreciated. This is a great site - Thanks

 

It's a diesel, so it's going to be a bit noisy. Sounds to me like your truck is normal and without any significant problems. There are things you can do to quiet it down. Here's some info to help:

The quality of fuel can affect the amount of injector noise. Good quality #2 or bio diesel will help quiet your engine down. Winter blend fuel or poor diesel will give you more knock, tapping, rattle, whatever you want to call it.

Ford's design for the fuel system has flaws. One is the design of the mixing chamber inside the tank. Some trucks start to suck in air when fuel levels are 1/4 tank or less. Air = injector knock.

Another flaw is the quick connect fittings between the fuel tank and fuel pump. Again these fittings allow air to be sucked in.

Third flaw is the deadhead fuel rails. Basically there is no outlet in the rails, so air can build up in the rail. To go with this, injector #8 gets starved for fuel. Ford decided that instead of improving the fuel rail design, that it would be best to install a long lead injector to help with the cackling.

Fourth flaw is the low fuel pressure. The International version of our engine runs at higher fuel pressure. The idle actually changes when you bump up the fuel pressure on our trucks, and quiets the knock a bit.

Some fixes you can do. Look into the Hutch mod. This removes the mixing chamber from inside the tank (also called "in-tank mod"). The "pre-pump mod" gets rid of the quick disconnect fittings. Both of these help seal up the fuel system and help eliminate excessive air being drawn in. A "regulated return" will fix the fuel rail deadhead and most kits come with an adjustable regulator to bump up the fuel pressure. These mods will decrease the amount of noise your engine makes.

Hope this helps and welcome to the site.

 

try an additive. could be a sticky lifter. my dads truck has that problem. some times it is as quiet as a diesel can be, and other times- that lifter is trying to wake the dead.

 

Fourth flaw is the low fuel pressure. The International version of our engine runs at higher fuel pressure. The idle actually changes when you bump up the fuel pressure on our trucks, and quiets the knock a bit.


I think you mean the international trucks dont let ford tweak them so the pressure is higher. Our engines are internationals, just ford put some fingers in where they may not belong.

Sometimes the description of the problem may be off too. A exhaust tick sounds to some like a knock. This is high pressure exhaust being pushed through a minor leak. The donuts for the turbo up pipes and occasionally the exh manifold bolts break. No biggie by any means. These engines will still run even if a rod breaks and blows a hole in the side or if a crank is shoved forward because of a expanded torque converter. They keep running better then the energizer bunny. In fact, it would be like the energizer bunny missing body parts and still going and going.

 

Thanks for the replies, sounds like maybe this may be something I could fix with the fuel system updates mentioned above or just live with the noise. I did let my tank get below a 1/4 tank before my last fill up, I may have introduced some air then. If I did get some air in the system by letting my tank run low is there a way to remove it or will it eventually work its way out? My main concern was that something was going wrong internally but my nerves have calmed some now after reading the replies. Thanks

 

excellent response Pocket, i left some reputation points.


He said basically what i was going to say, if it sounds like a small ball-peen hammer tapping the block, it's air in the fuel.