Old stroker won't start

[TWhetten]

My sister ran her '97 powerstroke out of diesel, now we can't get it to restart. We have cranked and cranked, but it won't even try to fire. Now it has started blowing white smoke. Did we burn something up? Any tricks to start it?

 

[AndrewGray]

I doubt you hurt anything. Just becareful not to crank too long or you will burn out your starter. I had a 97. They can be a pain to get startedif ya run them out of fuel. You will have to bleed the air out of it. Make sure you have the fuel filter as full as you can with fuel when you install it . Then you will have to crack the injector lines and crank it until you get good fuel to them. The 7. 3's are a fairly tough engine just get a little testy when something like this happens. I put over 460,000 miles on mine and it was mostly pullin a loaded 24' stock trailer. I run it out of fuel once and went thru what you are goin thru. Was not fun. Just keep tryin and it should go. Maybe put a battery charger on it just to take the load off the batteries and to spin it a little quicker. Good luck.

 

[TWhetten]

Thanks, I will try cracking the injector lines, I agree they are a tough engine, she has never had any problems with the trucks, that I why I could not figure out why I won't try to start, it has been a really good truck.



-Ty

 

[nickleinonen]

what injection line??? 97 powerstroke was HEUI. . fuel rail is cast into the head isn't it? [or am i getting cat heui & navistar heui mixed up?]

those t444e/7. 3 powerstrokes have a problem killing the cps [cam position sensor] might be that too...

 

[RGardner]

I have a 93 F350 with the 7. 3 engine that sometimes will start right up but others will start then die and then like to never start. In the winter it would always start when plugged in, but if not, again lots of cranking to get it started. Same thing even if it wasn't very cold. Plugged in start always, not plugged in maybe. Anyone got any ideas as to what is the problem?

 

[TWhetten]

You are right you can't crack the injectors. But we finally got mad, and with the help of a little starting fluid it finally fired up, ran rough for about 15 minutes, and seems to be fine.



thanks



Ty

 

[DWest]

My partners 02 started having starting problems and found that the glow plug controler or actuator was bad. Fixed it rightup. DW