I need an Honest, Reliable Deisel Mechanic
 

How about it? Any reccomendations for the Va.Beach / Norfolk area? I have some new symptoms my '02 7.3 truck is experiencing and don't want to take it to a dealership for a "fishing" expedition! Any local shops that do quality, honest work? I know a shop has to charge specific rates, so I'm not looking for the cheapest guy out there. It's hard to find a place that knows what they're doing. Thanks for your help.

What kind of problems are you having ? I have a good friend that I use, but I am not sure if he is doing any side work. He is a former Ford Dealer Heavy Truck Technician, he now maintains a large fleet of Powerstrokes.

Well, the new problem is a vibration felt through the entire truck when accelerating. It's barely felt, but it's there. It seems like it would be a fuel delivery thing or maybe an air delivery thing. Ok, I really have no idea. I can feel it mostly when accelerating, not when cruising.

Besides that, it would be nice to have someone help with routine maintenance and maybe even some upgrades. Thanks.

How hard do you drive your diesel? Diesels that are just puttered along in never really reach proper cylinder temperatures, and some of the injectors may coke up. This is especially true for short trips. A quick fix for a coked injector would be to put some Lubro-Moly Diesel Purge in your tank (mixed according to the bottle directions). That'll clean your injectors over the course of a tank of fuel. Another solution is to drive in the fast lane when you can. A solidly built diesel engine may take 10-20 minutes of driving to truly warm up, never mind what the water jacket temperature is.

Thanks BigBlue, I'll try that for starts. Lately, I haven't been driving as much and far. I messed up my ankle pretty bad and couldn't drive for a month and a half. Now it's been short trips to therapy and errands only......

Driving in the fast lane is good preventative maintenance.

I'm curious, do the PSD's have a glow plug timer on them? On older diesels, at least, you don't crank the engine until the glow plug light on the dashboard goes out. Otherwise, the engine seems hard to start and you coke the cylinders with unburnt fuel. With the glow plugs properly heated, the engine should start with essentially zero cranking time.

Yep, it's an '02. It has a glowplug warm up light on the dashboard. I never start the truck w/o the light going off first. Winter-cold nights I have a timer w/ a cord running out to the truck to warm it up for two hours prior to starting.

Even now I have no problem starting the truck.