I think I broke my IDI

[DOE-SST]

Its a 1994 E350 extended van with raised roof, non turbo 7.3, e4OD, and had excellent maintenance it's entire life. 190K miles, rebuilt transmission. New injectors last week.

It was a sweet running vehicle, plenty of power and I had to stomp on the fuel to get even a little smoke.

Until yesterday...

and it's first time towing. 7000lb trailer, 6000 ft altitude, 20-30 knot headwinds, going up frequent small hills in the southern tip of the Rockies.

On the hills, it was 50mph max, regardless of throttle position or overdrive being on/off. Step on the gas and the only result was lots of black smoke. 30 miles of small hills, but when I hit the plains, I'd still get lots of black smoke trying to reach 55mph.

Today, with no trailer and the van empty, the van had a noticeable loss of power, increased vibration/noise and was smoking constantly on my usual daily routes, whereas it had never smoked before on these routes.


Your thoughts and suggestions?

 

[OLDBULL8]

I would say your engine is not broke by any means. What you prolly have is an injector, and possible more that is stuck open and feeding to much fuel. Check your engine oil level and see if it has gained any. Some times the steel line hooked to the injector will become very hot on a bad injector. Too much fuel results in a lot of black smoke.
I went thru the same thing for 780 miles, S Carolina to Ohio, two bad injectors, gained a gallon of crankcase oil.

 

[Can30Diesel]

Black smoke is usually not enough air for the fuel being burnt. Its not uncommon with a non turbo diesel in high elevations especially pulling on hills. However, the loss of power unloaded and empty along with the new found vibration and noise combined with smoke is a pretty sure sign something isn't happy. I'd check simple stuff first, like air filter and air path. If things don't change, the next question is how old is your injector pump? Another important question is what color is the smoke unloaded and empty?

 

[DOE-SST]

The smoke is very black, and it smokes with just the slightest push on the throttle. The injectors are new Delphi BB codes, and I did pop test them before install, and all were 1850-1900psi. Guess I'll test them again this weekend.

The injection pump is a rebuild, unknown miles. Everything was running absolutely great before the towing trip.

 

[The Warden]

Do you have a pyrometer?

Given that the symptoms popped up after driving a heavy load at high altitude with a naturally aspirated engine, if you didn't have a pyro, you could well have overheated the engine even without the water temp getting high. I would suggest warming the engine up and doing a compression check, and hope that it's a simple matter of needing to renew the fuel system...

 

[DOE-SST]

I don't have a pyrometer.

Overheating is a definite possibility. The roads were narrow, no shoulder big enough to pull over and let traffic pass, and I was trying not to slow down the group of cars stuck behind me. I'll try to get a compression check done this weekend. Thanks.