Hello everyone, I have an e99 4x4 f250 with the zf6 and a flatbed. Truck has been plagued with problems since I bought it last summer. Fast forward and I reluctantly had the long block replaced. That engine was trash and got towed back to the shop before I got home after picking it up. I’ve been a Ram guy for years now and it was refreshing to be back in the found on road dead crew… warranty engine was then installed after over a month of back and forth bs. I got the truck back and while I’ve got some clutch/flywheel/pilot bearing/input shaft/trans issues it does drive.

What’s been bothering and worrying me is the engine shakes in the engine bay at idle/high idle and I’d have to assume while driving at speed. It makes me think something is out of balance as I feel like I can even hear the shaking. This leads me to think it’s some sort of injector issue even though the shop that replaced the engine said injectors are fine. I have no idea how or if they were tested to come to that conclusion. The original engine that was replaced had the same shake to it and I’ve never not felt/noticed it. The truck has 15-40 t6 in it btw. Sometimes I will get some white smoke on a start up after sitting for days that lasts around 10 seconds. Other times I can’t notice any smoke. The truck has a hydra and does smoke black if you really get on it or a little black going up slight grades in 6th.

Today before church I did some looking around and there was a small puddle of oil in the valley behind the fuel bowl/hpop/ipr. I then noticed the opt tin nut and another very small nut were sitting in the valley there. I took the sleeve and brass piece off the the ipr to inspect and it had oil on it including in the pigtail connector. I wiped everything quickly and reinstalled with the tin nut screwed on. Unfortunately that didn’t fix the engine shaking but I really do think my throttle response was sharpened and was much crisper but after a short drive the change was less noticeable. Next on the list of issues was I noticed that the valve cover pigtail piece that plugs into the valve covers on the outside on both banks can be pulled straight out. Assuming whatever plastic holding clips are long gone because I can slide them out with one finger. Tried unplugged both sides and the truck starts to stumble pretty bad running just one bank and would probably die if not plugged back in by the sound of it.
Hopefully this isn’t too long to get attention, just trying to give all the info I have. I’ve also tried shooting the exhaust manifolds with a heat gun to see what that shows. Both after start up and after running, 5, 7, and 4 are hotter than the rest, around 20 degrees or more depending on how hot I get the truck. After driving I believe the hotter readings were close to 300 and the rest were lower 200s.

I do not have for scan or an android at this point.

my current thought process involves loading the parts cannon that I can’t afford but I’d love to be confirmed or corrected. Finding the injectors harness pig tails able to pull right out leads me to think I need the replace the UVCH since I think that part is what has the harness clip. Going that route I figure it would be smart to replace the harness that’s under the valve cover as well before something there snaps off if it hasn’t already. Then there’s the ipr, I’m leaning towards replacing it solely because of its importance to the system but also because of the oil on it, can they leak? Or maybe the oil on it is from a leak in the HPOP? The puddle in the valley was quite small though so I don’t know. It does leak a little oil and I haven’t pinpointed where it starts but it comes down the front and drips (small drops) off the tie rod while running but nothing while off.

im not clear on what the icp does but I don’t think my symptoms line up with it and i was told it had to be replaced during break in miles earlier in the year and sure enough it looks brand new.

Am I on the right track with the injector/glow plug harness, the UVCH, and IPR? I was thinking about getting everything from full force in person if I can and then upon installation I can run the truck with valve covers off and look for oil flow from the injectors. If the shaking and slight hesitation coming off idle is there still I can remove the injectors and have full force test them for $300 and get it credited back if purchasing a full set.
I’d greatly appreciate any and all of the input I can get to increase my knowledge and working understanding of my truck and diesels in general. Y’all are the best🤘

 

before you do anything Period.

get ForScan and one of the Adapters to go with it.
there is a USB cord adapter for a Windows Laptop, this is the "best way to go"

but, the Bluetooth adapters perform well enough for you to pull codes.
you MUST have codes, before you do anything, period.

https://forscan.org/home.html

 

Forscan or some other means of scanning codes and monitoring live engine PID's is just about required for diagnosing most engine troubles. If you've got a smartphone, tablet, or laptop you can download Forscan and connect with the OBD2. That said there are a couple things you can do to keep you busy until the hardware shows up. I would probably start with a fuel pressure test, check the fuel for air as well. There is an easy test method in the tech section that uses the fuel bowl drain as a temporary test port. You can also check for air from there. Just run your gauge hose into a jug for a few seconds before installing the gauge. If any bubbles end up in the jug then you got a suction leak. Oil aeration can cause most of your symptoms too, and the fact someone has been under the pan recently would raise my eyebrows. You can start checking that by pulling the dipstick while running to see if you're getting some foaming or tiny bubbles in any significant quantity. Another avenue is to check resistance in the injector harness. You can check from the idm or 42 pin and should read around 3 ohms. The IPR valve wouldn't likely be the cause of oil all over the IPR valve. The only place it can leak is the o rings at the thread connection. The ICP is the pressure sensor for the hpop system. It's a pretty important piece of the puzzle. Long story short I'd recommend doing a little leg workout to troubleshoot and rule out some things before loading the cannon. That way the money gets spent where it's needed.

 

Good advice above I'll just add do not replace the IPR unless further testing determines it to be bad.

Pull off the ICP harness and check for oil in there. If it's wet you need a new ICP sensor. Some cheap fakes out there so I'd recommend a known source.

 

Ordered a bluetooth obd2 adapter on amazon just now. Should be here by the end of the day but I won't be able to mess with it until tonight after I put my son down. Does the truck need to be running to scan and read codes? Also while running do you know if the forscan view for ios can monitor all of the sensors? Thank you

 

The hardware will hopefully be here today and I'll be able to learn it/check it out this week while checking out other possible causes.

I do know that there is oil aeration present on the dipstick, tiny little bubbles. I just walked out and checked the dipstick cold and it reads slightly above full and no bubbles since it hasn't run since yesterday afternoon. It did have tiny bubbles on it yesterday afternoon though after running when I checked it. I will look into ordering a fuel pressure gauge and all the additional parts to check that. I also checked what I believe is the icp sensor in the drivers oil rail, still shiny and dry.

 

Before you get FORScan up and logging data, browse through the threads linked below. They will give you an overview of how t9 set things up with the PIDs and parameters we are interested in seeing.

Link 1 - https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...d-q-and-a.html

Link 2 - https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...d-version.html

Welcome to the FTE.

 

Thank you very much. I've got them opened up and will read through later today. My only concern is the data spreadsheet, not clear on if I'll be able to do all of that through ios. Either way, I'll do more digging and try to get familiar with it before it comes in.

 

The engine doesn't have to be running to scan for codes or perform most of the system self tests available on these engines, but to collect live data obviously the engine has to be running. @BWST is the man that can answer the charting tool iOS questions. Not my strongest area I'll admit. I'm old school video games on most tech stuff. Just keep mashing buttons until the bad guys fall down.

 

The PID charting tool runs on excel, and it looks like there's an iOS Excel app - I was surprised to see that. It might be difficult to use the tool on a phone, but a tablet might work. Interested to see what you find.

We would be happy to graph the data in the charting tool though - just post the CSV file you save out of FORScan Lite, and we'll get on it within a day.

 

As BWST (Jeff) mentioned, we would be happy to help you chart the data if you can upload or attach the data log to a post in this thread. Jeff is the genius behind the FORScan PID Charting Tool and there are several that are able to chart the data for you if you are unable.

Keep us updated and the fellas will get you sorted out!

 

thank you very much. I can try and post a file here, this was from a cold start so I’m not sure if the data will be accurate since FORScan said to have a warm engine for contribution test.. I will say it caused the engine to idle different during the contribution test and then it seemed to continue idling that way afterward, hard to explain but almost less knock but just as much shaking if not slightly more. Quite a few codes to go through…

 

Hooked up FORScan to the truck tonight and here’s what I’ve got as far as discovery that I can understand. Right away I had 3 codes stored in the PCM
P1211 - Injector Control Pressure Higher/Lower Than Desired (engine running)
P1316 - Injector Driver Module Codes Detected
P0475 - Exhaust pressure control valve malfunction

I did the injector buzz test. Everything sounded good buzz wise but FORScan pulled these codes.
P1271 - Cylinder #1 High to Low Side Fault
P1277 - Cylinder #7 High to Low Side Fault
P1273 - Cylinder #3 High to Low Side Fault
P1293 - Injector High Side Open - Bank 1
P1294 - Injector High Side Open - Bank 2

Next I did the cylinder contribution test which seemed to change the idle of the truck during and after the test, not sure what that’s about. Less knocking sound but still shaking the same or more.
Test shows code P0284 - Cylinder #8 Contribution/Balance

That concludes today’s progress with the truck. I also decided on the shop I’ll take the truck to for trans rebuild, every shop around recommended this guy so it seems like I’ve found the place to trust. Now if I can just get the truck to run respectably well to even drive it to have trans work done, that’d be sweet.

 

Now that you have a list of codes recorded go ahead and clear all of them. Then we see what comes back. Trouble codes can be stored indefinitely as long as the PCM maintains power. Add that to the fact there's no time stamp on when the codes actually occurred then we really don't know what we're dealing with.

Did I read that right that you did the buzz test with the engine running? That's a key on engine off test if so.

 

Sorry about that, the truck was off, I was just rushing to get to bed in time to go fishing this morning. I meant to write, turned the key to ON and did the buzz test. After I did the buzz test I started the truck.
Will try to clear the codes today. Is “deleting the data” considered clearing the code? 3 of the codes are in the “errors” part of the app, the rest showed through the “test” part of the app.