Attention: TDR Forum Junkies Hello all, if there's a better way for me to get the info, please point me in the right direction. I searched the forum and couldn't find anything pertinent, but my internet skills may be, errr, prehistoric?
I've got a '93 250 5.9L with ~396K miles and it's been a great truck overall and my preferred vehicle until about 6 months ago. In the past 6-7 months, I've had to use my roadside assist to get it towed back to my residence 7-8 times due to the engine dying on me while driving, or failing to start while out running errands. I've got a neighbor who is a diesel mechanic for the military look at/work on it a few times, had it into the local shop once and had another mobile mechanic who was referred by my hay hauler try to figure it out and I've had no definite answers to the cause. The first couple of times replacing the fuel filter seemed to work (the first time I noticed it was pretty gunked up, the second time it looked fine), getting the truck running for a week or so before dying, the 3rd time it happened I decided I needed a 2nd vehicle to get to work, so the truck hasn't had to be my daily driver (but that truck turned out to have multiple issues, and I spent Sept-November swapping one working vehicle for the other, but that's another story). I was starting to think that perhaps my injector pump was on its way out. The last time it died was when I was on my way back home from the airport over the holidays, about 90 min away. I was about 30 minutes from home when the truck died again. A friend got a 5 gal can of diesel and we tried starting it while waiting for the tow truck, nothing, got home where I had tools to crack the injectors to get the air out, and we were able to start the truck, and after about 10 seconds with my foot on the accelerator, I let off and it promptly died and we were unable to start it again that weekend. It sat in my driveway for a month until I got the referral for the mobile mechanic from my hay hauler and he came out last weekend, thought it was a bad solenoid, checked it and it was fine, he wanted to try bleeding the air again, I was skeptical but we did it and the truck fired up and idled for about 45-60 minutes. He thought that I must have a crack in my fuel intake, that was sucking air when the fuel level dropped low enough, and that made sense to me. The problem is, I've been driving the truck for a week and have gone though more than the 5 gal we put in when it died the last time (so far 140 miles with 45-60 min of idling) and I typically get 22-25mpg, so if that was the case it should have started pulling air and die at 110-125 miles.
I'd like to have the confidence that this will run as I plan on driving it across the country (WA to Chicago) this summer and don't want to think about it dying in, say, eastern Montana, the middle of nowhere North Dakota, etc. So I'd like to know where to look for possible problems and replace the problem parts before then.
Any thoughts/suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
I've got a '93 250 5.9L with ~396K miles and it's been a great truck overall and my preferred vehicle until about 6 months ago. In the past 6-7 months, I've had to use my roadside assist to get it towed back to my residence 7-8 times due to the engine dying on me while driving, or failing to start while out running errands. I've got a neighbor who is a diesel mechanic for the military look at/work on it a few times, had it into the local shop once and had another mobile mechanic who was referred by my hay hauler try to figure it out and I've had no definite answers to the cause. The first couple of times replacing the fuel filter seemed to work (the first time I noticed it was pretty gunked up, the second time it looked fine), getting the truck running for a week or so before dying, the 3rd time it happened I decided I needed a 2nd vehicle to get to work, so the truck hasn't had to be my daily driver (but that truck turned out to have multiple issues, and I spent Sept-November swapping one working vehicle for the other, but that's another story). I was starting to think that perhaps my injector pump was on its way out. The last time it died was when I was on my way back home from the airport over the holidays, about 90 min away. I was about 30 minutes from home when the truck died again. A friend got a 5 gal can of diesel and we tried starting it while waiting for the tow truck, nothing, got home where I had tools to crack the injectors to get the air out, and we were able to start the truck, and after about 10 seconds with my foot on the accelerator, I let off and it promptly died and we were unable to start it again that weekend. It sat in my driveway for a month until I got the referral for the mobile mechanic from my hay hauler and he came out last weekend, thought it was a bad solenoid, checked it and it was fine, he wanted to try bleeding the air again, I was skeptical but we did it and the truck fired up and idled for about 45-60 minutes. He thought that I must have a crack in my fuel intake, that was sucking air when the fuel level dropped low enough, and that made sense to me. The problem is, I've been driving the truck for a week and have gone though more than the 5 gal we put in when it died the last time (so far 140 miles with 45-60 min of idling) and I typically get 22-25mpg, so if that was the case it should have started pulling air and die at 110-125 miles.
I'd like to have the confidence that this will run as I plan on driving it across the country (WA to Chicago) this summer and don't want to think about it dying in, say, eastern Montana, the middle of nowhere North Dakota, etc. So I'd like to know where to look for possible problems and replace the problem parts before then.
Any thoughts/suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
