7.3L Power Stroke Engine and DrivetrainDiscussion of the 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 99 F350 that has 105K miles on it. It drives fine. I parked it Tuesday night, and when I got in Wed morning, it wouldn't start. Turned the key, all the dummie lights came on, vacume pump came on, glow plug light came on then went off and I tried to start. The motor turned one time and the quit, all the lights went off like it was bad batteries. Turned the key off, and repeated with exact same results. Cleaned the terminals and replaced both batteries with brand new 850CCA batteries, checked connection to starter and have the exact same results. One crank and then dead. Any ideas of where to start looking? I don't mind taking it to a shop, but I'll be darned if I'm gonna have it towed there! Thanks for any and all help!
Ok, so after taking off the starter and bench testing fine, I cleaned all connections and had same problem. Buddy came over and he held the key in the start posision and I saw one little pume of smoke come up between the ps battery and A/C compressor. This was after holding the key in "start" with the starter not turning for approx 5 sec. We tried this senario again twice and the last time the motor started to turn slowly and then faster and faster and then finally started. Really ruff but there had to be a bunch of fuel in the cylinders. Any thoughts on this now? Hasen't acted up at all the past 3 days.
further developemnts.... I noticed today while I was fueling up that there is a thin coat of oil in the coolant res.... Looks like the most common cause is a leaking oil cooler but is it possible that the oil cooler got plugged and created enough pressure to not allow the motor to turn. and once it finally started, allowed the oil into the coolant?
Any ideas of what I'm getting into with replacing/rebuilding the oil cooler???
I doubt that the oil cooler getting plugged would cause a no-start, although it may be leaking.
If it's leaking coolant into the cylinders (head gasket or cylinder wall perforation from cavitation), then it might be hydrauliced (cylinder full of incompressible fluid).
But the curl of smoke rising from the area between the battery and PS compressor would make me closely inspect the battery cables for interior corrosion. It may be that they're not wire anymore, but green goo inside the insulation.
thanks klhansen. It seems you were correct. When I was fueling yesterday and checking fluid levels the oil was down .5 quart from where it was and coolant was down as well. There was also a black film in the degas bottle. Let's hope it's a head gasket and nothing else. All the pieces are fitting together as to why it wanted to start but couldn't because of the hydo-locking. There was a bunch of white smoke when it did start and I associated that with extra fuel but it seems there must have been water as well. The good thing here so far is that when I pulled the oil plug after sitting over night, it was only oil not water... and it looked like oil, not milk....I'll keep you posted
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