compression test came back not good, what now?

[hillbillybob]

The shop called and said the compression on the drivers side were in the 250-260 range (one as low as 200) and the passenger side were in the 350 area. the truck has 175k, he said that nothing else seem to be too out of the ordinary besides the low compression which would be while it has white/blue smoke at start up, cold idles a little rough, and i feel like it takes a lot of throttle for the truck to get out of its own way while driving. Im going to talk to him more about it tomorrow when i go to pick the truck up. my dad seems to think we can get a re-ring kit and tear it, hone, and reassemble with the motor still in the truck? he has heard of people doing this and i feel like it would be a nightmare or is that just me?

[Evanla_33]

Might be able to if u can get the oil pan off! but you'll still have to pull the heads too, big job, probleys easier to pull out of the truck!

[10secondC]

Did they try to isolate if it was rings or valves? Just telling you the compression is down will have you chasing ghosts if you get it wrong.

[Patrick Feeley]

Can't pull the oil pan with the motor in the truck. I'd just pull it and clean everything up while you have it out. Could they do a leak-down test to narrow it down a bit? Cheers!

[hillbillybob]

No they didnt go as far as doing a leak down test. I think their idea was to do a compression test to find out if it was compression or injectors causing the cold hard start/rough idle/no power. I have been working on the truck for a couple months doing things here and there.

I got it from my dad and it was his super cheap project that he had got from an auction and the only reason i started working on it was because my girlfriend totaled her escape and i let her take over payments of the 03 f150 with a 6 in lift and 35's i had just picked up 2 months before the escape got totaled.

And so far its been a cluster trying to get it running right and proved to be way more expensive to work on than i had really anticipated. I have a feeling this is one of those projects that is going to nickel and dime me to death but its more like 5's and 10's. I could part the truck out for more then what it it would be worth after i dump 4k into the motor, another grand into a windshield and clutch setup it needs badly as the dual mass flywheel is wore out and a ticking time bomb. with buying it, motor, trans, clutch, body work, Id have two or three fold the blue book and price i could sell it for which is 2-3k above blue book in my area.

[csdwarf11]

Originally Posted by hillbillybob

No they didnt go as far as doing a leak down test. I think their idea was to do a compression test to find out if it was compression or injectors causing the cold hard start/rough idle/no power. I have been working on the truck for a couple months doing things here and there.

I got it from my dad and it was his super cheap project that he had got from an auction and the only reason i started working on it was because my girlfriend totaled her escape and i let her take over payments of the 03 f150 with a 6 in lift and 35's i had just picked up 2 months before the escape got totaled.

And so far its been a cluster trying to get it running right and proved to be way more expensive to work on than i had really anticipated. I have a feeling this is one of those projects that is going to nickel and dime me to death but its more like 5's and 10's. I could part the truck out for more then what it it would be worth after i dump 4k into the motor, another grand into a windshield and clutch setup it needs badly as the dual mass flywheel is wore out and a ticking time bomb. with buying it, motor, trans, clutch, body work, Id have two or three fold the blue book and price i could sell it for which is 2-3k above blue book in my area.

The truck needs a motor, trans, clutch, and body work? wow. Well If i was there...

trans-depending on what you need you can just run it with a few bad syncros, or rebuild it yourself for 250ish$ for a syncro kit.

clutch- Kens pulling parts is really cheap, he has a solid flywheel kit, the entire thing for 510 shipped. thats with a 500hp clutch.

motor- I would look on the classifieds for one that is known good. You could run a compression test on it, if it tests good then check to see if the coolent has any SCAs in it...or just go for it....if its lower mileage i wouldnt worry about that. I see engines up my way on craigslist for 600$ sometimes.

or you can look into rebuilding it. If its just a valve job then that's not that big of a deal.

body work- ask for bondo and rattle cans for christmas


dude, thats terrible news to find out. Sorry hope you figure something out that doesn't involve parting the truck.

[hillbillybob]

I think for now im going to leave it together. my daily driver is now my weekend wheeler nissian pathfinder and if anything happens to that i can still get back and forth to work in the powerstroke. and in the mean time i am going to finish assembling the built motor and get it in my 66 F-250 highboy and tidy up a couple loose ends in that so that can be my extra rig while i pull the motor in the powerstroke and have a buddy in a diesel program check out the block and see if the cylinders are in good enough shape to hone or if it needs to be bored out, and if it needs to be bored im going to start looking for a used motor or find a donor truck thats been wrecked or with a bad auto or something of the sort. are the SD 7.3 blocks the same as whats in my truck? as in find a good used SD motor and swap top ends out? im going to guess life isnt that simple is it?

[csdwarf11]

Originally Posted by hillbillybob

I think for now im going to leave it together. my daily driver is now my weekend wheeler nissian pathfinder and if anything happens to that i can still get back and forth to work in the powerstroke. and in the mean time i am going to finish assembling the built motor and get it in my 66 F-250 highboy and tidy up a couple loose ends in that so that can be my extra rig while i pull the motor in the powerstroke and have a buddy in a diesel program check out the block and see if the cylinders are in good enough shape to hone or if it needs to be bored out, and if it needs to be bored im going to start looking for a used motor or find a donor truck thats been wrecked or with a bad auto or something of the sort. are the SD 7.3 blocks the same as whats in my truck? as in find a good used SD motor and swap top ends out? im going to guess life isnt that simple is it?

The blocks are the same Im fairly sure, let someone confirm that. I do know that Powdered metal rods (weak link of the SD 7.3s) are in the SD's.

top endstuff like turbo, plenums, hpop (upgrade from 15degree) are different though.