tractortruck
New member
I am a Master Technician, well, my certifications say that. I have been a tech for around 20 years. I am not a powerstroke tech. This 6.4 in my shop is the first 6.4 I have ever played with. I am not very happy with this engine. Please forgive me if I posted in the wrong spot and feel free to help point me in the right direction.
This truck came to the shop in February on a hook. Intel says they filled it with gas and ran it till it stopped. Another tech drains the tank and fills it with fresh diesel, changes all the filters, and purges the system down and starts it up. It runs like crap and the other tech decides to drive the truck for a couple of days to see if the condition improves. Sadly it does not. The other tech sells 8 injectors and the customer abandons the truck at our shop for 2 months.
After 2 months the customer decides to go ahead and have the 8 injectors installed. I end up being the poor SOB doing the install, because I am the only tech with experience with the 7.3, and the 6.0.
I install 8 injectors and purge the system down, and it still runs like crap. Boss is looking at me like I dropped the ball, come on man, really? So I plug in the scan tool and look to see what cylinders are missing. Cylinders 3,4,and 5 are missing.
So I pull everything apart and go looking to see if I did get it wrong on this one. Pull the injectors out and no sign of anything wrong. None of us have a compression test adapter for this engine so I borrow one. I get the 16 page procedure for this engine from the same person. Boss wants answers in 1 hour.
I know diesel has to be squeezed to 400 psi in order to ignite and I don't have time to put this engine back together to run it to temp, and then test compression so I run with that. Cylinder 3 has 120 psi, cylinder 5 has 90 psi, and at that point I stopped.
I pull the air filter out and it would have filled a bowl full of dirt. I pull the dipstick and it is filled almost to the top of the stick. I drain the oil and get 6+ gallons of black fuel out of the motor.
I am ready to condemn the motor at this point and give the info to the foreman as to what I have found. He agrees and we let the manager know the wonderful news. It needs a motor.
A friend of the foremans at a Ford dealer warns him to change the entire fuel system before hand. The customer is not having it and decides on just the motor.
We normally service large tractor trucks and don't bother with something this small. 08 F 450. We do not have a lift to pull the cab so I lift the cab and use threaded rod to hold it up off the frame rails high enough to get the motor out of the truck and set it down.
I bag and tag everything as I go. I take pictures with my phone because I know sometimes these jobs are left in pieces for a while. It sits as a pile of parts in my shop for,,,,jeeeezzz I don't know how long till Jasper delivers a motor. We get the motor and it does not come with a gasket set. 13 days later we get a gasket set.
I start the process of putting the long block together. I loose half a day to cleaning parts by hand. It was bad, real bad. Another half day to get the motor assembled for the install. I get the motor in the hole and the cab back on and bleed down the system and get ready to start the truck. At the time we did not have service material for the motor so I struggled with the fuel system for a while. It starts, runs for a while and then dies. I am warned that this system if a real PITA to bleed down, so I am patient. I keep getting air in the system.
I go old school and pull out the clear vinyl tubing so see if there isn't something amiss. I tie into the lift pump on the frame between the tank and the pump, and pump output to the motor and use the scantool to bleed the fuel system down at the schrader valve and keep getting bubbles. I look and see I have bubbles coming from the lift pump output. I show the VP cause he was there and asked where I was with this truck and showed him. VP is a diesel mechanic and we figure it needs a lift pump. Dealer sells us the whole unit and says they can't get parts for it. I get the pump, bleed the system down and what do you know it starts and runs for an hour Friday afternoon and we figure it's all good. Last truck of the day we all go home.
Monday comes and I walk in and recharge the AC and go to start the truck and it is real hard to start. When it does finally start it runs for 2 minutes and dies. Great, now what. So I pull open the old lift pump assembly to see if I don't find anything off in there. It is chuck full of trash. I figure why not look in the filter housing to see if there isn't trash in there. Sure enough I find crap in the filter that was not there when I put the motor together. I clean everything out and pick all the crap out of the little plastic piece in the filter housing at the motor. Bleed the system down and start it up and it is really hard starting. I leave it running for like 3 and half hours and figure it's all good. Day is over and just to make sure I start the truck a couple of times to make sure it will run.
Next day it starts really hard and runs for like 5 minutes and dies. It won't start at all. I figure maybe it lost it's prime and grab the scantool to run the pump and bleed the fuel system down again. I get nothing, I look at the fuel guage and it says less than a 1/4 tank. I open the filter housing at the motor it's empty I go to the frame rail and open the drain valve it is mostly empty and no fuel coming out. I figure maybe there is trash in the tank. So I drop the tank and find the sump at the bottom of the tank. Put a new sending unit in it and bleed the fuel system down and sure enough it won't bleed down. I leave the pump running off the scantool for around an hour and still get bubbles. I tie into the fuel system again to see if I have a new problem. I'm sucking air from the tank. I drop the tank and the fuel lines will tank side at the steel and flex line swivel. So I get fresh rubber fuel line and new orings to reseal the fuel lines all the way to the engine steel line. I leave the clear vinyl line on to keep an eye on things and leave the tank on the ground. It takes the pump around an hour to get all the bubbles gone at the schrader valve. I start the truck and no bubbles from the tank to the engine. Engine dies a few minutes later. So this time I use my fuel test tools to tie a clear vinyl line in at the return line from the IP on top of the fuel cooler and run the vinyl to the tank and wait to see what happens. I get the truck to start and run. But I got bubble from the one line. As long as I keep these bubbles from getting to the filter housing the engine will stay running.
I am of the opinion that the Hard start issue is the IP taking a dump and the bubbles are coming either from there or exhaust gas is pushing into the system at the injector.
Again, sorry if this is posted in the wrong place. Any input is welcome, and feel free to laugh your A$$ off at me.
This truck came to the shop in February on a hook. Intel says they filled it with gas and ran it till it stopped. Another tech drains the tank and fills it with fresh diesel, changes all the filters, and purges the system down and starts it up. It runs like crap and the other tech decides to drive the truck for a couple of days to see if the condition improves. Sadly it does not. The other tech sells 8 injectors and the customer abandons the truck at our shop for 2 months.
After 2 months the customer decides to go ahead and have the 8 injectors installed. I end up being the poor SOB doing the install, because I am the only tech with experience with the 7.3, and the 6.0.
I install 8 injectors and purge the system down, and it still runs like crap. Boss is looking at me like I dropped the ball, come on man, really? So I plug in the scan tool and look to see what cylinders are missing. Cylinders 3,4,and 5 are missing.
So I pull everything apart and go looking to see if I did get it wrong on this one. Pull the injectors out and no sign of anything wrong. None of us have a compression test adapter for this engine so I borrow one. I get the 16 page procedure for this engine from the same person. Boss wants answers in 1 hour.
I know diesel has to be squeezed to 400 psi in order to ignite and I don't have time to put this engine back together to run it to temp, and then test compression so I run with that. Cylinder 3 has 120 psi, cylinder 5 has 90 psi, and at that point I stopped.
I pull the air filter out and it would have filled a bowl full of dirt. I pull the dipstick and it is filled almost to the top of the stick. I drain the oil and get 6+ gallons of black fuel out of the motor.
I am ready to condemn the motor at this point and give the info to the foreman as to what I have found. He agrees and we let the manager know the wonderful news. It needs a motor.
A friend of the foremans at a Ford dealer warns him to change the entire fuel system before hand. The customer is not having it and decides on just the motor.
We normally service large tractor trucks and don't bother with something this small. 08 F 450. We do not have a lift to pull the cab so I lift the cab and use threaded rod to hold it up off the frame rails high enough to get the motor out of the truck and set it down.
I bag and tag everything as I go. I take pictures with my phone because I know sometimes these jobs are left in pieces for a while. It sits as a pile of parts in my shop for,,,,jeeeezzz I don't know how long till Jasper delivers a motor. We get the motor and it does not come with a gasket set. 13 days later we get a gasket set.
I start the process of putting the long block together. I loose half a day to cleaning parts by hand. It was bad, real bad. Another half day to get the motor assembled for the install. I get the motor in the hole and the cab back on and bleed down the system and get ready to start the truck. At the time we did not have service material for the motor so I struggled with the fuel system for a while. It starts, runs for a while and then dies. I am warned that this system if a real PITA to bleed down, so I am patient. I keep getting air in the system.
I go old school and pull out the clear vinyl tubing so see if there isn't something amiss. I tie into the lift pump on the frame between the tank and the pump, and pump output to the motor and use the scantool to bleed the fuel system down at the schrader valve and keep getting bubbles. I look and see I have bubbles coming from the lift pump output. I show the VP cause he was there and asked where I was with this truck and showed him. VP is a diesel mechanic and we figure it needs a lift pump. Dealer sells us the whole unit and says they can't get parts for it. I get the pump, bleed the system down and what do you know it starts and runs for an hour Friday afternoon and we figure it's all good. Last truck of the day we all go home.
Monday comes and I walk in and recharge the AC and go to start the truck and it is real hard to start. When it does finally start it runs for 2 minutes and dies. Great, now what. So I pull open the old lift pump assembly to see if I don't find anything off in there. It is chuck full of trash. I figure why not look in the filter housing to see if there isn't trash in there. Sure enough I find crap in the filter that was not there when I put the motor together. I clean everything out and pick all the crap out of the little plastic piece in the filter housing at the motor. Bleed the system down and start it up and it is really hard starting. I leave it running for like 3 and half hours and figure it's all good. Day is over and just to make sure I start the truck a couple of times to make sure it will run.
Next day it starts really hard and runs for like 5 minutes and dies. It won't start at all. I figure maybe it lost it's prime and grab the scantool to run the pump and bleed the fuel system down again. I get nothing, I look at the fuel guage and it says less than a 1/4 tank. I open the filter housing at the motor it's empty I go to the frame rail and open the drain valve it is mostly empty and no fuel coming out. I figure maybe there is trash in the tank. So I drop the tank and find the sump at the bottom of the tank. Put a new sending unit in it and bleed the fuel system down and sure enough it won't bleed down. I leave the pump running off the scantool for around an hour and still get bubbles. I tie into the fuel system again to see if I have a new problem. I'm sucking air from the tank. I drop the tank and the fuel lines will tank side at the steel and flex line swivel. So I get fresh rubber fuel line and new orings to reseal the fuel lines all the way to the engine steel line. I leave the clear vinyl line on to keep an eye on things and leave the tank on the ground. It takes the pump around an hour to get all the bubbles gone at the schrader valve. I start the truck and no bubbles from the tank to the engine. Engine dies a few minutes later. So this time I use my fuel test tools to tie a clear vinyl line in at the return line from the IP on top of the fuel cooler and run the vinyl to the tank and wait to see what happens. I get the truck to start and run. But I got bubble from the one line. As long as I keep these bubbles from getting to the filter housing the engine will stay running.
I am of the opinion that the Hard start issue is the IP taking a dump and the bubbles are coming either from there or exhaust gas is pushing into the system at the injector.
Again, sorry if this is posted in the wrong place. Any input is welcome, and feel free to laugh your A$$ off at me.
