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Reliability on 97

3K views 17 replies 9 participants last post by  foxco44 
#1 ·
I got an older guy at work with me who has a 97 F350 CCLB, it has been sittin for around a year because it is using water, pressurizing the system. We went to his house, cycled the key twice, and it fired right up. So he took it to the shop monday and it is supposed to be getting the heads checked. If it comes out to be a gasket, someone help me start from there with what we need. Does he need ARPs? He wouldnt mind a little added power so what are yall doing for that. But other than that it has around 260,000 miles i think and he just wants it to be reliable
 
#2 ·
if he is not going to get bigger injectors APRs are a wast of good $($450.00 or more) just get a new set of head bolts ( your not supose to reuse the since that are tourq to yeld bolts)
 
#3 ·
How much power is he trying to add? Intake, exhaust and chip will get him about 60ish rwhp and still be as reliable as it gets before he starts tearing into injectors and turbos...
 
#4 ·
As far as your problem goes you need to pull the injectors and check the cups, best way is to use a cooling system pressure tester and pressurize the system then check for water flowing into one of the cups.
 
#6 ·
I'm so happy with my new gearhead chip from matt I couldn't see straight, and I picked up almost 3mpg's on econo tune!!!!
 
#9 ·
He told the shop that is working on it about the injector cups, they are telling him it would be getting fuel in the coolant. Right now they have to replace the radiator for leaking and the water pump or some #### because they cant get a pressure test reading due to this
 
#11 ·
:whs: Find yourself another shop that works on powerstrokes on a regular basis.
 
#12 ·
"The 7.3L Power Stroke injectors sit in a brass sleeve that separates the injector, and fuel, from the engine's coolant. These brass sleeves weaken and fatigue from use and tend to split and fail. A common symptom is finding fuel in your cooling system. This happens because the fuel system typically operates at around 60 psi of pressure, whereas the coolant system operates at a much lower pressure so the fuel gets pumped into the coolant when the sleeve fails and cracks."

Taken from Redwood Diesel Shop
 
#14 ·
I think what he was saying is that the radiator and water pump were leaking so badly that the system wouldn't hold pressure to allow them to do the pressure test. Thus they had to replace the rad and WP so they could get the system up to pressure to check the cups and head gaskets. At least that's how I am reading the thread.

I'm wondering at this point whether the cups are even bad. It's certainly possible that the water pump and radiator were the reason it was losing coolant in the first place.
 
#15 ·
You read it correctly. Sorry to the others if I mislead you. The owner of the truck said it was building pressure up pretty good when he had been driving it (prior to taking it to the shop). So he had been driving without the resivoir cap on it to keep it from building up so much pressure, but it was still loosing water
 
#16 ·
My eyes must be going bad. I thought I read that you were getting fuel in the cooling system. Then the shop wanted to replace the radiator because of it. So it was suggested you find a different shop. Good times.
 
#17 ·
Well a new water pump, thermostat, and radiator seems to have fixed the issue. He needs to change the oil, we have always ran and still do, run Rotella T6 15w-40 in all our Cat motors and all of our diesels. We buy it in bulk, but i suggest him dropping to a 5w-40 synthetic oil since his is HEUI. Would it be worth the swap for him to go to synthetic? Why? He has 280k miles.
 
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