dieseldoc

so any word on what causes the failure? and why you guys have two failures so close together?

another tech in our shop was putting a set of injector sleeves in a 3406E cat and washed everything down with brake clean like we always do. during assembly he bumped the jake brake head against the starter solenoid and booom! the fumes ignited and took both eyebrows off and part of his beard. luckily he was ok but do you have any idea how long that burnt hair smell hangs around.

Thanks guys I knew I read that somewhere before. I havent had a chance to check them for straightness yet. So it may not be an issue, but I had a customer of mine ask me also. Say bruce what do you mean by cheap? Do they have guides and seats, so they just need valves? I would be willing to pay shipping if the price was right. Thanks again for the info guys.

Working on a 94 DIT 7.3, the pick-up has 250,000 mi.on it. Has a leaking intake valve. I Have a machine shop that will do the head work for me(dont have the tooling to do it myself in my shop). I have a couple questions though. Can you plane the heads, if they need it? Should I put new injector sleeves in now as preventive maintenance? The bottom end of this engine doesnt show any signs of wear really. I think it will run many more miles once the heads have been gone through. Any input is greatly appreciated, thanks in advance guys.

Thanks for the help guys. I appreciate it.

I am working on a 94' DI 7.3. It has a miss when cold. I finally narrowed it down to a leaking intake valve on #2. Going to removed the heads and do a valve job and reseal the engine. I have been told you need to replace the head bolts, and also told if they look good you can use them over. Just wondering what you guys think about replacing them?

Yeah I use that a lot on the inline 6's I work on everyday. It works well there, but it is a lot tougher on the v-8s I think anyway. Especially trying to get a good shot at em. Thanks though.

That would be great. I have an autoenginuity scan tool on my laptop(it is awesome, way better than all the others I have used in the past). But when I do cyl. contribution it wont let me watch anything while the test runs. Well that I have figured out yet(just got it two weeks ago). I can pull up Fuel mass and volume though on the status screen. If I had a cut-out box I could cut them out one at a time and watch the fuel mass I should be able to find the weak hole. I have a 94 right now that only misses cold and you cant run the test til it warms up. Thanks for the pics. I am gonna try to build one this weekend if I get a chance.

Hey guys this one goes back to the 7.3. I am in need of a clicker box to cut out cylinders one at a time. I plan to build one. However I have not seen one, just heard of them. I am thinking it would be pretty easy to build. eight toggles switches, connectors, some wires and make a box. I was just wondering though from your guys' experience if you have any tips on the best way to make one and what would work the best. I appreciate you input in advance, thanks.

That is exactly what I thought. I have worked on powerstrokes for a while and would in no way say I am expert. But I know that there is scan tools available to work on it. The dumbest part of the whole comment they made was that FORD did not offer a scan tool that will work. For christ sake they built the damn pick-up, and purchased the engines. They would have to provide service tools to repair the vehicles they built and sell. I told him to go back and try to get some of his money back. I am not saying that it shoul be free. They did fix the vehicle,who knows how but they did.

This is just a question. A friend was in to his local ford dealership with his 96 F-350 with 7.3, He took it in for running really rough. They replaced the cam sensor and charged him $800. They said it was for diagnostic time. He asked why it took so long. They responded with there is no scan tool available from ford or anyone else that will work with a 7.3 powerstroke. I found this rather odd being it was an authorized ford dealership. I would think that it is required as being a dealer that you purchase a necessary tool like WDS, or IDS. Am I wrong?

You should try the wireless card from your cell phone company. We have two service trucks set up with it and this works real slick. Assuming you are somewhere you can get reception. Which from what you are saying wont be a problem. Seeing how you are not in the sticks like we are usually.

Thanks for the suggestions. I will check cranking speed, and crankcase pressure. What are the specs for cranking speed(250 rpm?), and crankcase pressure? I personally think it has a base engine problem. once the engine warms up the miss almost goes away. It still misses when it is warm but much less noticeable. I guess it could be an injector to, they have 238,000 miles on em. I will check that stuff out thought thanks guys.

I have a 94 f-250 7.3 stroke with 238,000 mi. It is hard starting, once it starts it misses bad until it warms up. While it is cranking it smokes A LOT. Once it warms up it runs ok, has decent power, and doesnt smoke. Tested the glow plug system and found two bad plugs and burned up connector. Replaced all 8 glow plugs, vc gasket, uvc harness, and repaired engine harness. While I had the intake boot off I inspected the turbo for damage(signs of dusting),ok.I also found fuel down in the lifter valley, all hoses to and from filter base were hard. I replaced all the rubber hoses in the vacinity of the filter base. Cleaned out the filter base and replaced the fuel filter. It was ready for a service so I also changed the engine oil and filter. I have run KOEO, KOER, buzz test, cylinder contribution test; all come up system pass. All the injectors sound about the same as the tests are running. I checked actuation pressure while cranking when it wouldn't start,ok. I am going to put some clear lines on the return to see if I am getting air in the fuel system, as well as check fuel psi (what kind of pressure is good? around 70psi?), also going to do a compression test. Is there something obvious I am missing? I am about to start pulling my hair out here. I have to borrow a scan tool for now, but mine is on order. That should help that I can watch things while cranking. Sorry about the long post just wanted to give you all the facts. Thanks for the help in advance.

The C7 is not much heavier than the 6.0/6.4. I have been looking into putting a 3126(the C7s older brother) into one of these pick-ups. My research so far says that it will not be that hard. In fact it will be much easier than you might think. I used to work for a cat dealer and the C7 is a pretty good engine. We had some injector issues at the beginning, but now they have cleared it up I think. I for one would be first in line if I could get a kitty in my super-duty. Just my opinion.

Well I just got my new diesel power magazine the other day and was reading through and saw an ad for elite diesel stating they had 6.4 tunes coming soon. As exensive as the engines are and how expensive is to fix why would you want to take any chance with losing your warranty. Besides that I can have more fun playing with my old idi anyway. But different strokes for different folks I guess.

I know this is a bit of an old post but appears to be an ongoing problem. I use calgon and have very good results. I have also used solvent before(I believe it is a zep product but not sure, I can find out if anyone is interested)Than use the soap to get the solvent film out. One thing that helps is we have a dyno and we can heat the engines up really fast. Oil cooler failures suck there is just no good thing about it. I work on heavy duty cat engines most of the time. However they only give us three hours to flush a cooling system no matter how bad it is. What are you gonna do though.

Well thanks EricBaker and everyone else for all of your input and suggestions. I think I am going to go with the AE. I will have to call AE tomorrow and get some prices but they definitely sound like the best deal by far. From what bruce says it will do everything I want to do and more. Plus $50 a year for updates sure beats the hell out of $1,000 a year from snap-on. Plus I already have a laptop that will be more than sufficient to run the AE setup. Thanks again guys, This is why this is my favorite and most used site.

Thanks for the info ErickBaker. I will be working on all three brands. I have used the older snap-on brick at the shop I worked at before becoming a heavy diesel tech. It worked really well and was easy to use. I was able to do the cylinder cut-out test with that but it was the early powerstrokes, 94-97. I will have to do some more research into the snap-on modis. How do you like your matco tool? Is the PDS a ford system I can get through my local ford dealer? What exactly is it?

Thanks, I saw that in a thread that was posted earlier. I looked it up on the net yesterday and it sounds interesting. But it appears that you buy the software kit and than to do anything specific(run any tests and get all the dtcs)you have to buy seperate modules for each manufacturer. Does anybody have any experience with the auto enginuity set up? Or does anybody else use something else that they like really well? What scan tools should a guy stay away from?

I am looking into purchasing a scan tool but dont know what to get. I am used to the snap-on brick that is what I use now. I am a caterpillar tech by trade and we use a laptop and communication adapter to communicate with our engines. I work on our fleet of ford service trucks as well as diesel pick-ups for people in my off time. There are so many options in scan tools that it is overwhelming. I am wondering what you guys reccomend. I need to be able to read and clear dtc's as well as run cylinder contribution tests, glow plug tests, etc. Being able to read some live data would be great as well. I am interested in a laptop based set up, but know how well they work nor have I been able to find much info. What do you guys think of the snap-on solus? Your insight into this necessity of a tool is much appreciated. Thanks

Wierd how that stuff comes in spurts. We went two months at our shop without doing a c-12 head gasket and this week I did 2 of em. I have seen that before several times. I had one one time we had to cut the piston and rod out of it with the torch to get the liner out. Believe it or not the block was ok. Overhauled it and it is still running.

We have had a couple of these 07' engines in our shop and I think they will be fairly good. They have issues with the dpf regenerating though. That is the only trouble with them we have experienced so far at our shop. They pretty much told us these trucks can not idle. To look at them in chassis is a bit scary. All of them we have had so far have been in long nose peterbilt and kenworth chassis. I can just imagine when they get them into short nose chassis like a columbia class freightliner or 387 peterbilt. The old ACERT engine are actually pretty easy to work on. Getting all that air piping off to remove an exhaust manifold isnt too bad believe it or not.

Hey guys I am looking at used pick-ups and want to know the vin codes for gear ratios. Ex. ?=4.10, ?=3.55. I am looking at 94-97 F-250,and F-350. Any help is much appreciated, thanks in advance.

Yep. I HATE bio-goo!!!!! All that stuff does is cause problems. It completely trashed the fuel system in my own truck(guy I bought it from ran the crap). I have several customers that have run the stuff and the rubber fuel lines have turned to mush. The stuff should be outlawed. Not to mention you walk by the vehicle with an ice cream cone and it is gelled up.