Injector leak at shutdown??

[Sidewinded_idi]

im kind of stumped so maybe some others opinion can help. For a while now my truck has randomly been doing this starting sequence where it’ll not spin when I engage the starter. I thought it was the starter solenoid so I replaced the starter as well as the solenoid. Now that everything’s new I’m thinking it’s a hydraulic lock.

When you hit the key you hear it engage but nothing happens. Key off/on and it’ll spin right over and fire up. I’m thinking it’s fuel related as I don’t burn coolant or oil. But when it randomly does this I get a big cloud of fuel smoke on startup. Lastly my glow plug controller hasn’t worked so last night I did a manual bypass so I’m going to see if that affects he big blue cloud at startup.

I’m wondering if I have a leaky injector that’s filling a cylinder. At idle I get a tiny bit of white smoke

 

[Sidewinded_idi]

Also it is very random. 90% of the time it starts fine. Every now and then it does it but most the time it’s at the first morning start

 

[Thewespaul]

If you get a chance and it does it again, I would pull the glow plugs and see if you get a lot of fuel coming out, I doubt you have an injector sticking open that much but it’s not impossible. Sounds electrical to me

 

[chillman88]

I had this happen on one of my trucks. For me the intermittent start ended up being a very very badly corroded starter cable.

 

[BrianX128]

Mine was bad cable causing solenoid on starter to go bad. Solenoid stuck on one morning and the starter was flying. Had to let clutch out in 4th with brake on and key off to destroy internals of starter in a moment of panic. Was not fun. Somehow didn't damage anything but figured if I let it keep turning i might damage the engine somehow.

 

[laserjock]

My truck does that if I hit it the second after the WTS goes out. For some reason, my GP’s are still on full burn a few seconds after the WTS goes off. Probably an artifact of my relocation harness. If I wait till the controller starts cycling, it kicks right over.

Just my experience.

 

[towcat]

in 30 years of working on IDI GMC's and Ford's, I have seen only one fuel hydrolocked truck. suspecting that condition? fire up your truck and let it run for a few minutes. put your hand on the top on each injector line and see if there is any difference in temp. a warmer/hotter one than the rest will indicate compression gasses blowing back through the injector. If I were you, I'd check out the electrical system first.

 

[Pork_Chop50]

I agree with @Thewespaul and @towcat. I would look at your cables and test your batteries. I had a very similar situation last year and it took me several tries before I finally got the bad battery to show on a tester. Also it could be in the ignition switch itself, like it's causing a delay enough for your preheat to fade and cold fuel to burn causing excessive smoke. My morning smoke bomb ended once I had batteries and started replaced and back to normal.

 

[Sidewinded_idi]

Thanks @towcat @Pork_Chop50 , with replacing the starter, solenoid, and batteries my mind tells me to not look at electrical but I feel it’s still electrical related. The injector trick is a nifty one I’ll have to try that out. Lastly is our trucks supposed to hold fuel pressure? I assume not with the return bleedoff but just checking.

 

[Pork_Chop50]

Could it be in your ignition switch? I have to think back several years, but I seem to remember mine getting fussy and it just needed replaced. If you happen to have another Ford laying around you could quickly swap out the ignitions and test that.

 

[OLDBULL8]

im kind of stumped so maybe some others opinion can help. For a while now my truck has randomly been doing this starting sequence where it’ll not spin when I engage the starter. I thought it was the starter solenoid so I replaced the starter as well as the solenoid. Now that everything’s new I’m thinking it’s a hydraulic lock.

If you had a "Hydro-lock", you would hear a a definite loud THUMP IF THAT PARTICULAR cylinder was not at TDC or the engine would not turn over at all. As said, pull all the glow plugs out, fuel or water would squirt out under Hi pressure, be careful, it could hurt you.

 

[Sidewinded_idi]

If you had a "Hydro-lock", you would hear a a definite loud THUMP IF THAT PARTICULAR cylinder was not at TDC or the engine would not turn over at all. As said, pull all the glow plugs out, fuel or water would squirt out under Hi pressure, be careful, it could hurt you.

Completely agree, the more I think the more I think it’s electrical. It sounds exactly like a bad starter solenoid where it does the loud click but nothing happens, cycling the key fires it right up. I will check the positive cable as starter and solenoid are brand new, batteries are about 3 months old

 

[Hydro-idi]

Had the same thing happen to me when I put a reman starter with my new engine last year. It would click loud which means it was making contact with the flexplate, but didn’t have enough juice to turn engine over. Went back to Azone and replaced the direct drive starter with a Mitsubishi style starter and that did the trick.
To add, Azone bench tested that starter and said it checked out ok. Took me a while to convince them that there starter was the problem but they did replace it!

 

[Sidewinded_idi]

Yep it’s a direct drive autozoner!

 

[Hydro-idi]

Azone should have the Mitsubishi style starter. They carry both kinds for these trucks.