I'm new here and have tried searching, but nothing to my specific problem.
I'm looking into buying a 99' F250 7.3 283,000miles
I test drove it and it had full power no hesitation. It idles constant not jumping up and down. At an idle it has white smoke out of the exhaust but when driving it goes it away. Also I checked the oil filler cap while the truck was on and it was puffing out. Also my oil pump has a slight leak nothing major. Possibly needs orings to be replaced. Any idea on what it could be?
some white smoke out of the oil fill tube is perfectly normal. good rule of thumb is take the oil fill cap off, turn it upside down and lay it over the oil fill hole with the engine running. if it blows it off, youve got some big issues (broken rings, hole in piston etc). As far as the white smoke out of the exhaust, does it do it when its cold, right after start up, or any time its idling? How much is it putting out? just a haze or choke you out clouds of it? when they are cold it is pretty normal for white smoke, and a very light haze at idle is normally nothing to be overly concerned with
I live in Florida, cold mornings here aren't very cold. It does it any time during the day even when the engine is warmed up. I would call it a decent haze not too heavy, but definitely noticeable
I just went and tried your test. The engine was vibrating a good bit, but the smoke pumping out was enough to make the oil cap jump a bit.
I just took it to a diesel mechanic down the road and he said the engine maybe on its way out it could be 2 weeks or 2 years.
Thats a tough call. Like he said who knows how long its got left. The only way to really know is have someone do a compression test on it and see what that comes out like. You said it seems to have full power though? usually if something is on its way out with a loss of compression, power is down. Being that your in FL, itll be kinda hard to tell, but does it seem to start hard when its "cold"? in a diesel a loss of compression usually causes somewhat of a hard start. As far as the white smoke, that could be a bunch of things. As simple as injector o-rings to being related to broken rings or something along those lines. does the smoke smell like fuel or does it have a sweet smell to it?
It doesn't seem too hard to start in the morning. and the smoke smells more like fuel than it does sweet. I will probably just get a compression test done and see what comes up.
Any update on what you found out? My truck has the exact same symptoms. White smoke at idle, plenty of power, not difficult starting. I did fail the oil cap test.
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