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3709 Views 21 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  erwatt, 
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My first post -
Broke down on trip - HELP PLEASE
Drove on interstate around 250 miles. Refilled with 1/4 tank. Drove another 40 and started losing power. We are dead in the water. Truck will idle a little rough, but not bad. Blows blue white smoke when I push the accelerator. No power when I put in gear. Sometimes cuts off. Any suggestions. Oh yea, it's a 6.0 that has been bullet proofed. Engine and tranny temp are normal. Oil pressure is good.


Update -
Family came to the rescue and towed me home.
It was suggested to drain the fuel. I drained the fuel and it kinda had a gas smell to it. Not real sure though. I also replaced the fuel filters and added some PM22 and PM23 fuel treatment. Added 10 gal of fresh diesel. Truck started up, ran good, had normal power, but did smoke. I drove to the gas station - 1.5 miles, filled up the tank. Drove off - no power?? Drove real slow to get her home. Reset the computers by disconnecting and reconnecting batteries. No help.
What do I need to look at next? Could a bad fuel injector be causing this issue? How about the turbo charger? Any feedback would be appreciated!!
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Sorry I haven't gotten back earlier. I've been traveling for work. I appreciate the feedback TKOPerformance. Well I tested the fuel that I removed from the truck and it definitely has gas mixed with the diesel. :-( I will be testing the fuel pressure tomorrow.
To answer your question regarding boost rise - I don't get any kind of noise or feedback from the engine when I accelerate. It acts as if the acceleration petal doesn't even exist.
I don't know what kind of damage has been caused by the mixed fuel. This is my first diesel and my knowledge is limited. But it looks like I will be learning a lot.
Again, thanks for the feedback. I will post an update after further testing. Any advice on manufacture of fuel pumps, pressure regulator, fuel injectors?
Tks!
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Checked the fuel pressure at the filter on top of engine. It was at 50 PSI. While cold the engine ran fine. It accelerated without issue. I was moving the truck forward and backward in the drive and was pushing hard into pedal. The fuel pressure only dropped 2 PSI while doing this. Things started going south after the engine started to warm up. It took a good 20 minutes for the engine to start moving the temperature gage. The engine started running really rough. When I put it into gear the engine would almost die. When I accelerated the engine it had little power. The fuel pressure was still at 50 PSI with a maximum drop of 2 PSI.
My truck does not have a booster gage so I cannot tell you if the booster rises when I accelerate. I'm assuming the booster will make some sort of noise when it rises. When the engine is hot and I do not get a response from the throttle, I do not hear the booster picking up speed.
How can I determine if the booster needs to be replaced or if it is one of the many sensors could be bad?
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I checked the MAP at engine idle, accelerating, and at higher rpm - not loaded - sitting in driveway. MAP was between 14.5 and 16.2 PSI. That was the highest setting I could achieve. I also checked the rubber hoses on the intercooler duct and did not find any leaks.
From what I have read that pressure is very low. What I don't know is if this pressure needs to be checked under load.
Any feedback would be appreciated.
Tks
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First I would like to thank TKOPerformance for his continual support. I'm new to this forum and to the world of diesels. I'm not sure where I would be without the support of this forum.
I tried to further test the MAP feedback by driving around in the neighborhood and observing the feedback. However, today the truck ran very poorly, even when cold. I did note that MAP was reading 14.5 PSI before I started the engine. After starting the pressure only rose to around 15 +/- 1 psi. I did put it into gear, hold the truck in place with the brakes, and accelerated. This did not change the MAP feedback. The engine did not have enough power to pull out of drive, so I backed off trying to do so.
I was also going to check the voltage on the FICM. I thought that voltage was one of the parameters on my diagnostic tool, but it's not. Well it might be, but I'm also new to the diagnostic tool, so it could be operator error. I plan to investigate further if I have enough time tomorrow. If I'm correct it looks like the FICM is located next to one of the batteries. I guess I will have to remove the battery before I can access the pins to measure the voltage.
Again, thanks,
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Well I found time to check the voltage on the FICM this weekend. My luck, when I was moving the water reserve tank out of the way - I broke the plastic Y fitting - dang it! That was a $50 mistake. Made a plug for the hose to ensure I didn't get water into the FICM while checking. In all cases the voltage was between 48.1 and 48.8 VDC - ignition switch on, running cold, or running hot.
Truck still runs okay when cold but when hot it runs rough and cannot accelerate the RPM. We still don't have any error codes.
Would checking the HPOP pressure be the next step? Any other suggestions outside of dynamite?
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Thanks TKOPerformance! I thought checking the voltage when engine was cold and when it was hot would be adequate. The voltage was good in all cases. However, the engine ran poorly and would not accelerate when it got hot. Live and learn I guess.
I did change the oil to verify if there were any signs of metal dust or flakes in the oil. There were not any signs of metal in the oil. The magnetic oil plug had absolutely no metal containments. I'm hoping this is a sign there aren't any mechanical damage such as piston rings, bearings, or such.
I have a friend coming over tomorrow to put the truck on a computer analyzer. He says he can find my problem. I hope so. I'll let you guys know the out come.
Again, thanks TKOPerformance.
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Well it's been over a year since I posted an update on the 6.0. I parked the truck in the back yard due to family issues and money. I did periodically go out there and cranked her up to keep the batteries charged. I had not cranked her up for a couple months so I did so just before Thanksgiving. I let her warm up about 30 minutes. Just for kicks and giggles I put her in gear after she warmed up. It seem to have normal power. ??? If you read all my previous postings, it always lost power when it warmed up. I drove it around the block but I was too scared to push my luck. Yesterday, I took her for a ride. Drove around 15 miles with speeds up to 65 MPH. The truck seems to respond normally. I don't understand. I have not done anything to fix the problem. It just seems to go away on it's own???
Oh yeah, I did have a friend to come over and use his scan tool. He said it had at least 2 bad fuel injectors and a couple other things, I don't recall now.
If someone could shed some light on this, please do so. I'm still a little gun shy to take the truck on a longer ride. At least until I can figure this out.
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Thanks for the feedback TKOPerformance. I'm going to try to take her out farther and farther from home with a plan to get her home if she leaves me stranded. One thing I didn't mention is that the weather is cooler than the last time I tried to drive her around. I don't know if that is a factor or not. Also, the truck is not smoking, pinging, running ruff, or anything out of the ordinary. I'm thinking of running her for a few hundred miles and I just might take her to a diesel shop for a checkup. Again, thanks TKOPerformance for the support.
Oh, there is one more thing. I usually use Internet Explorer. But with this forum it runs extremely slow. I also get errors and it shuts down my browser. This has happened twice since I read your post. I switched to Firefox and it seems to work okay. Am I the only one having this problem? I remember it was like this last year. That was one of the reasons why I didn't spend more time on this forum. Again, thanks.
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Just a quick update. I have been driving the truck daily. I didn't make note of the mileage before I started driving, but I have ran out a little more than 1/2 tank of diesel. The truck seems to be performing okay. It picks up speed quickly and holds highway speeds without any hesitation. There is a noise I haven't figured out yet. It has a hissing sound when I accelerate at higher speeds. It almost sounds like a hose leak from suction. The weather is not so good but I'll look at it the next sunny day. Outside of that, the truck is building my confidence that it will be okay, or at least, no serious issues.
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Just to give an update. I've been driving the truck daily now since Nov 2017. Reminder - the original issue was I had mistakenly added gas, > 1/2 tank, to my truck on a trip. Drove 39 miles and the truck died. Towed home, cleaned out tank, filters, etc. Truck had no power but would idle. Sit for a year and whala, it started working??? Long story short. The truck seems to running just fine. I didn't make any big changes. Thought I was going to have to replace engine. I guess I got really lucky. Lesson learned!!! I double, triple check the pump when I re-fuel.
Thanks to all the replies and support I received from the forum.
Tks,
erwatt
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