94 non turbo 7.3 idi no start
 

Hello all, back with another truck. This place was awesome last time so here goes.

truck sat for a few years.
previous owner took off the injection pump and timing gear and got a used one to replace it. He installed new return lines and stopped.

I used the haynes tech manual to do the timing procedure for the ip and installed it. It was a pain in the but to get all the lines primed but after that and a new filter and two new batteries, it acted like it wanted to start but just wouldn't quite catch.
glow plugs all check out and it is burning some diesel as it has a little smoke come out the intake and the exhaust. After awhile of trying the battery's died. I charged em up and never got the same"I want to start" since.
I keep listening to videos of bad starters and good ones trying to tell if it's bad but coming from my auto background it's hard for me to beleive the starter is bad, but idk what else either?

let's hear the magic lol

I would unplug the glow plug controller(or 3-4 glow plugs, should have the same effect of not letting the plugs get warm).
Put a 1/2 second shot of ether into the air cleaner and try to start her up. May need a decent bit of ether to get it to fire.

Chances are, it'll fire and run either really poorly with white smoke or really clattery and black smoke, because you will be 1-2 teeth either advanced or retarded.
If you get white smoke, advance the gear one tooth. If advanced, retard it.

To advance the timing gear you rotate it clockwise as viewed from in front of the truck looking backwards(aka top of the gear goes towards the driver's side)

I've tried ether a couple of times and it acted like it was gonna seize up the engine so I stopped with that.

As for timing I've thought it over and I know the marks the manual says to line up are lined up so is there something im missing there?

thanks!

Typically that means you are using a bit too much. Or the engine is warm(the ether is firing prematurely)

I've had trouble myself when putting my IDIs back together after removing the IP gear. I get everything lined up and end up 1 tooth retarded. I've had this happen 3-4 times, double checking the marks and everything.

Don't ask me why, but it might be worth advancing it one tooth just to see.

Ok well you have given me a direction. Now with what you say and it predetonating with any ether, I'm thinkin perhaps it ended up advanced. As much as I don't want to pull it back off I think I'm back to that now anyway.

Ether is volatile enough that it will fire due to compression if the engine is hot enough. No fuel needed at all.

I'm not going to say one way or another - without it running, it's nearly impossible to see if it's too retarded or advanced.

If it is too advanced, one idea - put a lever or wedge under the light-load advance lever to hold it in the fully retarded(out on the cam, in at the bottom) position. That would give you an extra 5 degrees or something like that.

I suspect, however that it's retarded...


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You don't have to pull everything off to skip it a tooth.
Just pull the front cover off the IP gear cover. Leave everything else alone.
Rotate the engine so a known point is facing a known direction. I like rotating to where the pin is facing straight up.
Make a mark with a sharpie on the housing next to the pin as a reference mark.

Then, loosen all 4 bolts on the housing. Carefully pry the housing up just a bit with a large screwdriver, just enough to clear the gear. Then, you can rotate the IP gear enough to skip one tooth. Set the housing back down and re-tighten the bolts.
Check that you are only just a little ways off your original mark, and the correct direction. It's easy to skip two teeth.

Man that's genius. That's why I bounce my problems off this place. The manuals only go so far (not very far)

thanks a ton bro!

if that doesn't work I'll be back but I'm betting that's it

Only other thing I'm going to say is that once you have everything figured out... you will need to somehow re-seal it(or it'll slowly weep oil along that now-unsealed crack).
You can probably do a similar mark-and-loosen the bolts thing, then pull the IP gear-to-IP bolts, and just slide the housing(with bolts) clear, leaving the IP hanging on the lines.
Then, you can clean off the RTV, use new RTV(I much prefer one-minute-gasket though!) and try to get it back together.

...Or, if you are lazy, just run a nice bead of RTV along all the edges where the gear cover meets the block. As long as it's clean where you put the RTV, it should stick and seal just fine.

Ok.so I retimed the pump, I was one tooth advanced. Along with that I continuity tested the glow plugs, 7 of 8 were bad so I replaced them.
Now in definitly gettin more smoke out the top of it, alot more. It's still.white smoke. I can't be certain the fuel system is purged either, there's a bubble in the return line that won't move.

thanks for any help