99 & up 7.3L Power Stroke Engine and DrivetrainDiscussion of the 99 & up 7.3L Power Stroke diesel engine and drivetrain in the 1999-Up Super Duty trucks and Excursions. No gas engine discussion allowed except on transmissions and drivetrain that pertain to all models. Please confine discussion of topics in this forum to those items that are specific to the 7.3L Power Stroke engine.
I have a 2002 7.3 powerstroke. Recently i have had a couple of problems with my check engine light. I was cleaning my engine off one day with the truck running and the truck lost its idle and sounded like it was about to die. The check engine light came on and it spitted and sputtered for a while. I shut the truck off and turned it back on and it ran for a sec and then started to sputter again. After about 30 min of idling it cam back too and was running fine. Now from time to time, prob once every couple of days. When i am driving all of a sudden my check engine light comes on and i lose all power. I mean if its settign still it doesn't have enough power to pull itself. Sometimes i ahve to shut the truck off and restart the truck and its back to normal and running fine. Sometimes i can just let off the fuel and it will straighten out and come back to normal. I have had Ford run a scan on it but didn't pull anything on the truck. They told me the fuel sock on the fuel pump pickup might be getting clogged but i wasn't real sure about that because this only happens every so often.
The fuel pickup could be your problem but I don't see it correcting itself without killing power to the pump. If it stumbles and and comes back more than likely not a clog issue in my mind. If your problem started after cleaning the engine, you should be looking at all the engine connectors for water intrusion or one you may have knocked loose. I would start pulling off the connectors one at a time and cleaning them out and inspecting the contacts for corrosion and dirt. Make sure you check the Valve Cover Harness connectors, these have a tendacy of comming loose, they have the injector and glow plug wires in them. They are located on the top of the engine one in each head at the mid point, they are connected to the valve cover gasket.
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Ken
2002 F-350 CCLB 4X4, HD4R100 , Riffraff FRx, Riffraff CAC Boots & PRI's, Bellowed Up-Pipes, 4" Diamond Eye exhaust, Powerslot rotors, ATS Ported Compressor Housing, DP Tuner-F6, Autoenginuity, EEC-V Breakout Box, KCM S.S. HPX Line, S&B Filters intake, Quad Autometer gauge pod, Inovations canopy, Banks Big Head wastegate actuator, 6.0L Trans Cooler, Spin-on Transmission filter with custom bracket, Zoo-dad, Dieselsite Coolant Filter, Cobra 29LTD/NW CB, DVD and always looking to do more....
My 2000 P/S would be running fine, then start loosing power, would not pull it's own weight. Sometimes codes would set, other times not. Codes were always for injector problems. Sometimes a restart would correct problem, sometimes not.
Like Woodnthings8 said, check harness connections at valve covers. You have small connectors for both injectors and glow plugs. These connectors can and will burn. So, pay very close attention to these. I discovered the problem by using a small amount of dielectric grease on the pins that looked bad. Problem went away for several months. When it came back, I replaced the defective connectors, problem solved.
I bought the connectors from the local Diamond International truck dealership, very inexpensive, and not real hard to install. Wish I had the DI part number for you, but I don't...sorry. Hope this helps.
Hey Chris, while you are there It might not hurt to remove the valve covers, and remove & inspect the inner connectors from the injector harness to the valve cover gasket. I've had alot of those burn up inside.
If the dealer thinks it's the pickup screen - disconnect the supply fuel line and remove the fuel cap when you are low on fuel and blow through the fuel line with compressed air, until you feel as though you may have blown the pickup screen off the end of the tube.
Be sure to install an inline fuel filter if you do that!<------seriously!
We've had alot of success using this method.
Also I recommend checking the connector at the CMP Sensor that the wires don't look chewed mangled or otherwise just barely hanging on. <---make sure bare wires can't intermitantly touch each other.
well, i had ford clean the fuel pickup screen, and also run a computer check on the truck. They found no codes thrown on the truck and it still is having my check engine light problem from time to time. I let ford drive it for prob 50 miles yesterday and still they found nothing. I am going to try and check all the plugs and connectors this weekend for water or corrosion on them. hopefully ill get lucky and find something.
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