starting issues with my 7.3

[farminfordgirl]

It seems as everyone has had some starting issues with their truck but after reading for hours I still don't seem to find a post with anything that matches my exact issues. I have a 2000 7.3 4wd that has 160000 miles on it. I bought it in march of last year and it is my first diesel so I am still learning. When the temperatures started to drop in november to about 40 degrees F I would start my truck and it would run rough and if I didn't let it run for a while it would choke going down the road. I would accelerate and then my rpms would dump and the truck would chug like it was starving then rev way up, the whole time never changing how hard I was in the acclerator. After about a month of this It then started firing up then running a little rough and then level out, kick into high idle, then run AWFUL shake the whole cab and on some days stall. The whole time not plugging it in, then the stalling got more consistant then I moved back home from college and could plug it in and we were back to firing up when it was warm with no problem. Now it got down below 5 degrees F and the truck even after being plugged in all night takes 7-10 seconds even after cycling the glow plugs 5 times. when it finally started today it rean like CRAP like it had air in it after nursing it through for 10 minutes it evened out and started to run smoothly, I shut it of and then after one glow plug cycle i tried to start it warm and it still took 5-7 seconds for it to fire. I have just changed the oil today and the CAM sensor and it has two good batteries and it has a brand new glow plug relay. White smoke does come out only after it fires. I am still new to this diesel so any help is appreciated.

[mikejones96]

How "new" is the GPR? I did mine just last winter and its going bad already . I'm not sure how mechanical you are but if you have, or know some one who does have, a multimeter check the voltage drop across the two big terminals on it. And if thats good you can ohm out the gp's and see if they are bad. I would start with that cause it sounds exactly like what happened with my buddy's older 7.3. Good luck.

[farminfordgirl]

I just replaced it two weeks ago and we looked at the GP all with a Multimeter and they looked good. But that was two weeks ago when it was real bad so maybe I will look at them again but I am thinking maybe a fuel check valve could be bad has anyone heard of this??

[jesilvas]

There is a thread on how to test the GPR and GPs. I'd do that first. Check the UVCHs too. They supply power to the GPs. Also, the EBPV will cause a loss of power while driving. It closes to help in warm up. I'd unplug it. After all that, then see how it's doing.
No fuel check valve to go bad.
You can search all that stuff I mentioned and find tons of stuff because there are tons of threads about it.

[Myers129]

i have a 2000 7.3 and feel your pain mine would do it anytime it got below 32. I found mine was a combination of poor oil maintenance before i owned the truck which puts irreversible gunk in the oil side of the injectors. my truck has the same miles as yours. I milked mine for three extra years so dont be to upset if thats the case. I would recommend the stancor gpr mod for sure and run 5w-40 synthetic oil, i run mobil turbo diesel truck. also if it comes to new injectors in the future i would highly recommend stage one single shots as the injectors run the same price as stock but i think they start better in mine because they require less high pressure oil to fire. I got all my stuff from Jody at DP Tuner and couldnt be happier. I never plug my truck in anymore and have had good results so far.

[jesilvas]

Try RevX if the oil was kept up that badly.