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Can you drain it into a clear container to see how much water is in there? It could be you just have a ton of water in the tank. How full is the tank? Fill up at the usual place last time?

It's not good for the injectors to run water thru them. Getting the water out of the tank would be better for them than running it enough to drain from the fuel bowl a couple dozen times. You could try siphoning it as completely as possible, might get enough water out that way. But it may be necessary to drop the tank to get it all.

The pic below is the clip on the back of the fuel pump, located on the frame rail under the driver door. If the connections back toward the tank seal well enough you can siphon from there. The connections are known to suck a little air tho, so getting it started and keeping it going may be a chore.

 

Thanks for the response! yes I can drain it, but how does so much water get into the fuel? I have been filling up at the same place I just put in about 20 gallons. I barely made it home, died again as I parked. I'll give it a shot, I don't know what else to do. Don't wanna drag this out but, on the highway it kills the motor but then kicks back on keeps going for a bit dies, etc.. It's on side streets where you got no momentum it dies and you're stuck, turn it over a dozen times starts up and off you go till the next light.

 

I had a 6.0 that had the seal on the tank sending unit go bad. Actually it was almost gone, being held on by just a couple threads. He was getting water in the tank from wet roads.

He came in a couple times and we drained the separator and sent him on his way. Same thing second time but asked him to try different fuel.

Came in on a Tow. Dipped the tank with a wire and paste, it was water the fist 4".

Drained the tank, separated the fuel and water, new gasket, back on the road.

And, yes, I gave him about 50% off Labor and a 10% Military Discount. Don't need no negative feedback!

 

That's something I woulda never thought of, brilliant, I'm gonna check that first thing in the A.M. It makes perfect sense, we just had a good snow last week and it melted the next day, I drove right thru all that, gasket has never been messed with good chance water coulda got in there and that would explain why there's so much. 4" you say, that's a crap load. Thanks for the heads up, I appreciate it!

 

My Australian story with WIF light. Originally the truck, a 2000 XLT F250 7.3 auto, 281k, (175kml) ex ambo, lost power going up hill on the last leg home, of a 2700klm (1700ml) trip from Alice Springs (Finke Desert Race- support vehicle) with only 255k (160ml) to home & we didn't make it. NRMA tilt tray to the rescue!
I removed my fuel tank, as I suspected (& from information gleaned from posts here on FTE) due to the large particle strainers in the fuel pick up blocking up. The pick up on the fuel sensor unit was in pieces in the tank too. I blew out the fuel lines, cleaned the tank, changed the water separator filter (on the chasis rail) as well as changing the filter on top of the engine.
Engine fired up & runs, a bit of white smoke at start ups but clears. WIF light stays on. Read more FTE info- cycle ignition on 15 sec off 5 sec a couple of times to cycle system, nothing changed. Found the yellow lever on the rear of the filter, drained & refilled.
Starting cycle, light went off, before starting, all good.
Only driven 4k (2ml) home, WIF comes on intermittently.
So now once home, have disconnected the batteries to allow the computer (PCM) ? to reset (FTE info)
Hopefully it will have corrected itself overnight.
Any suggestions ?

 

The story continues, batteries reconnected, WIF light cycles correctly upon start. On a 16k (10ml) test drive, the light illuminates under acceleration & off when decelerating or under brakes.
The truck has a "safe tow" tune installed by a 1705 max micro tuner (MMT)
So, the next step would be, plug in the MMT & run the the diagnostic programme to watch for DCT interpretations.
I'll keep an eye out for this code- P1139- Water in Fuel Indicator Circuit Error

 

Russ,
Is it possible you have a wire that has "lost" it's insulation?
Larry

 

Sounds like the WIF light is working correctly and you have water sloshing in the fuel bowl. Open yellow drain lever, key pump on but do not start. 20 seconds later when pump stops close yellow valve and drive off annoying neighbors lawn before he catches ya.

If there really is no water you can pull off the wire and tape it up securely out of the way. Unless you live in a really cold place you don't need it. And if it shorts out the fuse, that fuse also powers the PCM, so the truck is dead until fuse is replaced.

 

Thanks aawlberninf350, I've drained the bowl when I replaced the fuel filter.
Disconnected the WIF sensor aswell, our climate out here is mostly hot & dry so moisture is not much of an issue out here.
Another thing now, once started the engine runs for about 10 seconds then runs real rough, blowing heaps of light grey smoke (resembling an old 871GM on a cold morning) but a bit of throttle & it clears itself. Don't know what's happening here, so where do I look now
Also I set the "tune" back to stock from "safe tow" Yet to run it again

 

Well this truck is dead on my driveway. Fitted a new fuel pump & a new oil pressure sensor. No more water in the fuel.
The only code which has come up was 0603 "Internal KAM fault", which could mean a myriad of issues.

 

Russ, after reading through your post's again, I think you have water in the tank.
You can remove the power wire to the fuel pump and jumper from the battery to pump the tank empty through the fuel bowl (attach a 3/8" rubber hose to the drain tube in the passenger fender well). Look at the fuel in a clear jar to see if there is water, or buy a fuel sampling kit that shows if water is present.

 

Haven't been on here for a while. Continuing the story, I removed the the fuel tank & found water residue which had contaminated the fuel.
Haven't done many k's since then (only about 500) but when the truck is left without being started for a couple of weeks, upon starting, it blows white smoke & runs rough after initial start up then clears.
Today, it started but konked out. Upon draining the filter on the engine I found about 20% of the fuel drained was coolant !
What could cause coolant to enter the fuel system ?

 

Coolant in your fuel filter housing sounds like a cracked injector cup. I can't think of another path, but others will chime in soon.

Not sure how you can identify which side or hole without going through them all. The Cody test will find a failed HPO injector o-ring, but those o-rings seal against the head itself, not the injector cups.

 

Thanks. An international 466 engine on my road grader had water cooled injectors which had a copper cup around each injector. One was split but I can't remember what alerted me to the problem, pretty sure it was external .