Loading up at idle

[BlueMule]

Bill
What are the symptoms of a broken injector spring?


Leader
He's in Alaska, so summer fuel and not letting the truck sit and idle may not be an option. Good point about the fuel gauge being way off, I can always go another 75 miles when either tank hits "E".

[MADVAN]

Rod

They smoke a bit more at startup. Also sometimes have a slight shake in the motor for a few seconds after startup, and then it self clears . You notice it more in a splitshot. Just to rich at startup. Motor rattles more at temp. It really depends on how many of the 8 are bad.

1 truck had blown copper inj gaskets. The cly compression blew thru the lower 0-ring. Found this with a fuel presssure gauge mounted in the head fuel galley. At startup it had crazzy erratic fuel pressure.

Another truck it was broken nozzel springs. Fuel leaked or injected to soon.

My own van right now is a crop duster at first cold startup has a shake and clears. After that runs like a raped ape. Getting about 10mpg with it now. Have not pulled it apart yet but believe its nozzle springs or dirty nozzles. Vans are a pita.

Bill

[woodsthing]

my last tank I put 16.8 gals in and had 115 miles on the od. that tells me that milage is 6.8mpg. milage has been like this since the summer w/ #2 this truck used to get 20mpg normal, 24 highway... summer time. winter saw 17-20mpg, only last winter too.

I have been calculating fuel milage every tank in the last 8 months or so watching it go down- truck has new injectors as of july, no change in operation at all. I idle as little as possible, quick warm up and thats all.

EOT sensor chacks out, scan tool shows no abnormalities at all...(not that I can notice anyway) EBPV operates fine, I IS NOT EBPV ISSUE- dissabled runs just the same, so i plugged it back in for warm up... Sorry if im rude- everyone says ebpv is on...

back pressure shows fine too cat isn't plugged and niether is the sensor nor is the tube and fittings. It would be ashame to sell this truck it has been so nice to run until now...

woodsthing

[bigfootinindiana]

Were missing something here. Is this your first winter with this truck? What weight oil? Chip or stock? I know your sensitive about the EBPV issue, but have you watched to see if its working on cold startup? You say it makes no difference plugged in or not, could it be stuck closed? "winterblend" and 15W40 can make your mileage drop considerably along with 1 hour idle times, but 6MPG is crazy. Maybe your not getting up to a good operating temp. What are you scanning with?
Jason

[vengeanceent13]

Well, I unhooked the EBPV and no change. I'm thinking possible Injector issue due to excess smoke under startup???? 168k on originals might indicate time for a rebuild or new ones. Seeing as I have to put Glow Plugs in it might not be a bad time.

Also just checked milage and I was at 12.9 and that was with the plow off, mostly highway and little to no idle time.

I have to say somethings up because my 01 has Stage 2 Single shots and I still see at least 15.5 with that......

[woodsthing]

bigfootinindiana-

ok, ebpv. At start up, it gets through its morning blues, once it smooths out, I hit the high idle and the valve kicks on like you would expect it too... the motor bears down and you hear can hear the noise throughout the neighbourhood, once the truck hits the temp it likes (about 2 mins or so), it shuts off and goes to a normal civilized idle noise. This is how it goes when temps are below 0 and the rig's been plugged in, any warmer w/ plug-in and there isn't much need even kick the idle up, as it is rather warm already- the ebpv hits for about 30 sec ir it hits at all- Of course the opposite is true at temps like 40 below zero and colder (like we are going to see come friday) This in normal ebpv operation- the truck lacks no power on hills beyond what the "tim allen" in me feels...

As far as the scan tool, we're using a factory refurbished snap-on scan tool being operated by a 22 year master mechanic who has never seen this problem before in the fleet that he maintains (true he works for alyeska and they run mostly GM rigs, but they have used plenty of fords for the bigger stuff, the older superdutys and the newer 4-550s). To continue w/ ebpv stuff- durring operation, unless the valve is activated, back pressure is normal for a stock set-up... here's where i fall down, I don't remember the #, but kurt said his personal rig (97psd) builds the same. We have eliminated false readings by pulling the sensor tube and fittings and cleaning reaplacing the nesesary parts- there WAS some build-up, however there were no occlusions. Same story after reassembly. Visual inspection of the valve externals shows that it is in it's fully open position. To make sure, we unplugged it. the only difference is that the valve won't close when the motor is cold...

As far as the other stuff you mentioned I have owned this truck since sept '04 and have brought it from 160k to 270k on the odometer. All of this time spent in the heart of Alaska... The truck averaged 18-20 mpg the first winter I had it (hand calc) and that summer I has blown away w/ 24 mpg on trips and better than 20 normal driving- I new I had a keeper... It stayed this way until about feb '07 when it dropped from the winter norm to about 15 or so- it held for a few months, then in the summer it began dropping. Now we can see how good it is... the power stayed great through the summer, but I have noticed it is a little soft on hills w/ a load (I own a tree service and have a chipper and chip box and it pulls these hills abit slower now, but unloaded I wouldn't know any power difference.

Combine this post with my others in this thread and you can get a picture of whats going on...

I am missing something too- The truck should be running poorly (the bit of hesitation is the only other symptom, connection? dunno???) with this sort of mpg diiference, i should be smelling it in the exhaust or seeing smoke or watch it spill on to the ground or a code or, or, or...

Thanks for sticking w/ us on this, it's an expensive problem even w/o the cost of parts... Tonight will be the IPR cleaning, and we will watch fuel and oil pressure more closely.

woodsthing

[bigfootinindiana]

Like you said that fuel is going somewhere, seems like you would have excessive smoke. I'm assuming your chipped since you mentioned high idle unless you have an AIC. If chipped have you tried removing it? MADVAN might be on the right track with broken nozzle springs. Do you have a pyro? Have your temps changed? Stupid, but could your odometer be "way" off?
Jason

[woodsthing]

Hehe, well, gotta consider everything. Odometer is accurate, and it's not stupid to suggest it- It's just another tick on the list. The truck is stock- it has an APCM, so, idle control. I use charge protect. One thing we will consider is to pull the CAT aside and see how it smokes before hand- You do have a good point w/ exhaust temps, I have no pyro gauge though. Will see what exhaust is w/o cat though, at the tailpipe it stings the eyes and doesn't smell right so the fuel may be buring up in the cat... I do get it nice and hot on a regular basis hauling chips and firewood so its nice'n clear- as evidenced by scan tool. It could be wrong, but it feels like there is plenty of "getupandgo" to it.

As for injectors, replacing them this summer should have made things better... these were rebuilds from FL... I should have paid for better known rebuilds, maybe new, who knows? These could be bad in the same way as the old ones. I will check fuel pressure tonight and watch for fluctuation.

Thanks for keeping w/ me on this bigfoot,

woodsthing

[woodsthing]

Okay, tonight we pulled the IPR and cleaned it out. btw for those of you w/o the specail tool, displacing the fuel filter works well enough to get an end wrench on... unhook it from it's mounts and shove it back, as long as you watch your wires and hoses, it's a good way to go... when disassembled the ipr is as said, simple- we found a minor amound of junk inside, but nothing caught on orings or mating surfaces cleaned this out and put it back on. We had alot of trouble geting the little junk nuts back on (we found that this truck has had this IPR pulled/replaced before as when we lost the nut in the valley a magnet found two more of the nuts just below it... we replaced the nut with a real one out of the misc drawer and continued. This had no effect. At least no positive effect...

Before starting, we hooked up the scanner (snap-on wt2500) and checked pressures against ford spec. idle = 570ish (small variance +/- 15psi). At wot we hit a variable pressure of around 1300-1700 w/ a steady foot. After IPR cleaning we saw even pressures of 1250-1500psi alot less variance second to second... Drove it for about 20 miles, it still had the loading up/hesitation as before. Here're some numbers we collected while on a hill dpd (down pedal driving) Oh and it sucked down nearly a 1/4 tank for this little test drive.

eot =185deg F
MAP(boost) = 27psi
iap =2500-2700psi

I can't remember the ebp # sorry it's an important one but at idle we're at 14psi and wot its 19-21, while those of you with open 4-5" exhaust might think this is way too high, seems like a nice tight spread to me... remember, stock truck.

Tomarrow will see us underneath the truck disconnecting the cat to see if we can smell fuel and to see if it runs better. If a taboo MOD makes my truck run well again, then I'll do it- but I'm not holding my breath. Then on thursday is a compression test if the cat is okay. Then, who knows- any bright ideas?

You guys have fun out there,

woodsthing

[woodsthing]

I spent while searching posts tonight and found a thread from May of 2006 where a suggestion for "poor 'gas' mileage"(hehe) was to disconect the MAP (manifold absolute pressure) sensor and drive for tank... I read the rest of the thread and decided to try it ... now. I just got back from driving about 200 miles and it's nearing 4am in AK and I have to report an astounding increase in mileage.

yesterday I filled up and got about 7mpg. After driving for a few hours, I now have hand calculated my mileage to be 15.690mpg thats (for the tank i filled up at 1 am) 108.8miles from fairbanks to nenana and back to the same pump to refill with 6.934gallons of diesel.

This is very nearly the mileage I used to get!!! This is using #1 fuel (winter), 4wd, and NO easy pedal 65-70mph up and down solid hills w/ the goal of time vs. economy!

For those reading for info on the "loading up" issue, this had no effect- it was the first thing I was able to check and resopnded in exactly the same manner- I'm sorry to have hijacked this thread, will post my results in a new thread with the goal of finding out (with some degree of specificity) how the MAP sensor causes this...

Thanks all,

woodsthing

[MADVAN]

Originally Posted by MADVAN

Another thought would be the barro and a mapp sensors. I would scan the range on them also.
Bill

The mapp at 27psi wot is about 13psi on mech gauge, and is a good boost # for a stock truck. It does ruleout a clogged cat also.
You should have been able to see the mapp HZ. The hz at idle was high (above 111hz)? Or Hz just ahead of boost (accell)? Thus rich.
Glad to see its fixed.

Bill