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Crank, No Start, Everything Tests Out?

3K views 13 replies 3 participants last post by  kaya 
#1 ·
Hey everyone.

Background: 99 F250 with the 7.3 Intercooled, 207,xxx miles.

TL;DR: Truck cranks, no smoke, no fire. ICP, IPR, and CPS all good. Glow Plugs and GPR good. Lift pump good. What else is there?

Before all this work, the truck had major issues starting, it would fire on a few cylinders even with the block heater plugged in, in 90 degree weather. Eventually more cylinders would fire up, and it would run on 7. It would always blow white smoke until you hit full boost, then all cylinders would fire and it'd run great. But once you came down off boost, it would go back to blowing white smoke. CCT reported cylinder #5 was bad.

The fuel filter was black, so I figured it was injector O-rings. Also, the guy who owned my truck before me was a special kind of idiot, so I've spent a lot of time cleaning up his mistakes (like smearing a metric ton of goop on the oil dipstick tube adapter to try to get it to stop leaking).

Anyway, my problem. The truck will crank, but it will not start. There is no smoke coming out of the pipe. In this round of repair, I changed out all of the injector O-rings, as well as shimmed the injectors following the ebay kit's instructions (set the armature clearance to .004" with .002" more on the coil). I also changed out the fuel filter, the oil dipstick adapter o-ring, and the drain bowl o-rings. Cylinder #5 was special, the outboard injector hold-down bolt was loose, and it looks like the injector came up out of the head a bit. The injector cup was heavily coated in carbon; I was literally pulling chunks out with a brush. I used a shotgun cleaning kit and polished the cup up, and it looked great when I was done. I also cleaned all the crap off the injector, new o-rings, and installed it.

The truck cranks strong (new starter and a pair of new batteries a few weeks ago). When cranking, the tach comes up. Forscan tells me that the ICP shows 80psi to begin, and it climbs after about 10 seconds of cranking to over 1000. The ICP and IPR are fairly new. The CPS is also fairly new. Forscan also tells me that the cranking RPM is about 120-150.

There are no engine codes stored. I ran an injector buzz test and a KOEO self-test, all passed with no codes.

When I crank, each of the injectors spurt out a little oil. After cranking for about 20 seconds, I hear a click or a knock coming out of the core of the engine. Not sure what that's about.

I've been off and on trying to start it for the last 3 hours. Still no fire. When I first tried starting it, about the 3rd round of trying to start, it did blow a little white smoke and sound like one or two of the cylinders were firing. Now, 3 hours later, I have nothing. No smoke, no diesel smell in the pipe.

Also, when it cranks, I seem to get some white smoke out by the injectors. I thought it was the kind of smoke that is usually in the crankcase vent, but now I'm not so sure. It doesn't have a strong smell to it, so I'm not sure if it's diesel or oil.

I'm at a loss here. I have ruled out everything that I know how to rule out. Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance!
 
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#5 ·
Lol. you need to check it manually. With a gauge.
Lack of smoke while cranking points towards lack of fuel
 
#7 ·
Couldn't find a fitting to check the fuel pressure, but I had no fuel flow. The lift pump filled the bowl once, and failed. I drained the bowl to clean out the screen on the pressure regulator, and the lift pump wouldn't fill it back up. I disconnected it from the tank side and ran it, and it was not generating any suction.

Replaced the lift pump, and she's running great now.

Let this be a lesson to others out there who find this post: though most fuel pumps won't make any noise when they fail, mine kept whirring and sounded healthy but didn't pump a thing.

Thanks for all the help guys!
 
#8 ·
Investing in a set of gauges or a monitor can help diagnose problems quicker by giving you real time data. Glad you got it running
 
#9 ·
Posting again because I have another problem.

Truck runs great and started up great, still a little white smoke but not nearly as bad as before. Once it warms up it seems to go away.

But now, we hooked up the boat and when towing it up a hill, at WOT I got a SES light, but the engine would keep running and pulling strong. I thought the SES light was a EGT fault, so I let off the pedal, but then started slowing down too much and re-applied. But this time, the engine had no power. It was de-fueling. No smoke. It dropped to about 55mph, then at the top of the hill it randomly kicked back on, the SES went off, and it was towing strong again. It did this 4 or 5 times before I turned around and got my laptop.

The code I get is P1211 - ICP uncontrollable. So I looked at my ICP and IPR numbers, and i get this:

At idle, 11% and 500-700psi.
Cruising, 1500psi and 13-20%.
At WOT, I'd get 3000psi, and it'd start climbing up to about 3200, and the duty cycle would climb up to 40-50%. Then the SES light would come on and the engine would de-fuel.

The ICP has no leaks, both the ICP and the IPR are new within the last 3 months and 2000 miles, and the engine oil level was at the low end of the operating range, but still within the checkered pattern.

Where should I go from here? From what I read (and please correct me if i'm wrong) the stock ford tune should only desire up to 3000psi of HPO, at any RPM range and load. I'm getting over that, granted at a sort-of high duty cycle but still within limits. And none of this should cause the truck to de-fuel, would it? I'm not sure where to go here. My IPR is under warranty, I'm thinking of swapping it out and trying a new one? Any other thoughts?

Thanks in advance.
 
#10 ·
I think my IPR is sticking.

Here's the graph of right before I got the check engine light:

You can see I was pulling hard, vehicle speed and RPM was increasing. The IPR duty cycle was slowly coming up, but the ICP was not. Then right before the SES light came on, the ICP jumped up to 3100, and that's where I let off the pedal.

That makes me think the IPR is sticky.

The dipass who owned the truck before me never maintained it, and I put my first oil change on it 2000 miles ago. Also thinking about it, I probably got diesel in the oil when I changed the injector o-rings. I'm going to change out the IPR under warranty, and change the oil, and see if that helps.
 

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#12 ·
Hmm, this might be a limitation of Forscan. I don't know if I can view the desired ICP. I have two ICP values, and they're both in the graph; one is a lot twitchier than the other. Is that the desired ICP?

I'll have to look more into this tomorrow. Right now, my flex plate rattle will get me complaints with the neighbors.
 
#13 ·
Looked as deep as I know how to, all the information I can find about desired ICP relates to the 6.0 and newer engines. Can we actually view the desired ICP of a 7.3?

ICP Desired definitely is not in my list of available PIDs, though this might be a limitation of FORScan. Can anyone confirm this?

Is there any other way for me to diagnose P1211, short of replacing the HPOP and hoping this helps?
 
#14 ·
If you have 2 ICP pressure PIDs, one is desired. Most likely the one that is not twitchy.
One way to tell which is which would be to disconnect the IPR and crank the engine. The one which reads low pressure would be your actual.
 
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