BILLOWING white smoke

Kraig

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If anyone can dissect that post and make sense of it I'm glad. I think I have a few things to check now and I hope it make sense to someone else.
 

Kraig

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Also I may have missed the leak around he injector because I checked it when it was running because I was looking for an egregious leak around the injectors and found none.
Maybe with the engine off and no oil in her the leak with show itself? I can def hear it somewhere in the engine but haven't been able to put my eyes on it.
 

greenskeeper

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Ok, reading through the whole thread again I have a new hypothesis.

**Please don't think this is my idea but something just clicked as in my head and finally made sense to me.**

Ok let's say I have a cracked cup, blown Orings on one injector. That makes the coolant leak around the injector, run down into the oil return in the head (under valve cover) and go straight into the engine. I say this is not original ad I'm sure someone has already mentioned this scenario but it just clicked for me. That would explain the sludgy oil as the oil temp made the coolant boil once it went back to atmospheric pressure causing the sludge buildup in the intake via the CCV. Also the "coolanty" oil could make the injectors behave strangely, intermittently.
Also if I had a bad oring and it dumped mostly fuel into the oil that would account for weird non coolant liquid that drained out of the oil pan with the oil as the coolant loss could have just been evaporating with the heat of the running engine.
And when i pressurized the system I could have made a slight leak worse thereby seeming like a much worse problem.
more or less what I've been saying. Most of the time when a failure occurs shortly after a repair (in your case o-rings/cups) that is what I would look at first, unless you know that the engine was run hard, etc. These are really stout engines (B10 life = 250k miles, B50 life = 350k miles conservatively). Unless you ran with a heavy tune or did something silly I doubt the engine is blown.

By pressurizing only the coolant side, you may be getting a bigger leak at a cup/oring than if the oil side (10-100x more pressure than the coolant side) was pressurized by the HPOP. Once the engine is shut off the HPO goes to zero, along with the fuel pressure, but the coolant stays pressurized until it cools off allowing the coolant to flow past the now zero pressure fuel and oil sides.

This could also be the situation with the oil cooler. zero pressure on the oil side allows the coolant to flow directly into the pan, whereas if the engine was running you'd have 60psi oil at the cooler holding back 10 psi of coolant pressure.

Remember.... coolant 10psi, fuel 70psi, and oil 600-2800 psi depending on load when running.
 

Kraig

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And yes. That's exactly what I meant. I know y'all already suggested the possible cause but it finally clicked With me. Hopefully I'll be able to test it tonight.
 

Kraig

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Ok so I reinstalled the water Pump to test the theory. Well, I can barely get it to drip out the pan a drop every 15-20 seconds. Before it was a stream!! I'm also only dropping pressure about 5psi every 10min so the leak has slowed considerably. I'm back to super confused.
 

Kraig

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Well we found cyl 7 (pass rear) full of green something. Had to be coolant. With pressure on the system the coolant was rising up the empty injector hole and every time we sucked ut out it filled back up. We then relieved the pressure on the coolant system and it stopped. We then re-pressurized the degas and it would not fill up again.
Oh and also, when I put pressure on the degas at first tonight, having done nothing to the engine, it would not leak down. It was holding pressure pretty well and barely dripping out of the oil pan. So what kind of leak seals itself!?!?!?

So further down the rabbit hole we go
 

Kraig

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Pulled inj 7 and the hole was full of green fluid. Thought coolant but had to be fuel. Sucked it out 5-6 times (with piston at TDC And pressure on degas bottle) and it kept filling. Took the pressure off and seemed to stop filling. But left pressure on it all night with injector out and we still had 7psi this morning with no liquid present in the 7 cup.
 

greenskeeper

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install a new cup and o-rings in #7 with quality parts and being extra diligent that it's done correctly would be my next move.

you didn't play with the injectors at all correct? Just replaced the cups and o-rings 5k miles ago?
 

Kraig

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I pulled the injectors to "shim" them. A mistake I'm sure but anyway that's done.
I am gonna replace the cup just to make sure. I def have migration of a liquid into the #7 cylinder. But Ive been holding about 5-7psi on the coolant system for over two days now. But how I do not know.
When we first pulled the glow plugs and barred the engine over we got a bunch of fluid come out of the #7 hole. Thought it was coolant but don't know. Coolant/water or fuel. Def not oil. We sucked it out and after letting it sit with pressure on it for over a day i barred the engine over again and got a little fluid but not a lot. And in that time the psi dropped from 15psi down to 7psi but three days later it has only dropped to 4psi.
 

aggiediesel01

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If you’re confused about where your leak out the pan went, chalk it up to corrosion. The amount of time you’ve had this issue is more than enough for surface rust to set in, starting to block off the leak. Put it back together without fixing it and the heat, pressure, vibration will get you back to the beginning of this thread right quick.

There are sets of injector driving tools on eBay now in the $40 range and they ship from Houston. Looks like they’re made using aluminum mostly except for the tap. Probably not the best choice for a life long powerstroke mechanic but they look more than adequate for a few whacks here and there.
Get a good Ford, International, or Alliant Power cup and the correct loctite and have a sucky couple hours and finish it off with a couple beers and it will probably turn into a bad memory. If it doesn’t, drink the rest of the beer and we’ll help you figure it out after you recover.
 

Kraig

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The only problem is it was leaking like a stream and within two days it was not leaking at all and holding pressure for days. That can't be surface rust right?! This is such a crazy situation.
 

greenskeeper

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I pulled the injectors to "shim" them. A mistake I'm sure but anyway that's done.
I am gonna replace the cup just to make sure. I def have migration of a liquid into the #7 cylinder. But Ive been holding about 5-7psi on the coolant system for over two days now. But how I do not know.
When we first pulled the glow plugs and barred the engine over we got a bunch of fluid come out of the #7 hole. Thought it was coolant but don't know. Coolant/water or fuel. Def not oil. We sucked it out and after letting it sit with pressure on it for over a day i barred the engine over again and got a little fluid but not a lot. And in that time the psi dropped from 15psi down to 7psi but three days later it has only dropped to 4psi.
What did you "shim" ?

Armature gap (top part of injector) or something else?

If the #7 cup and o rings look good, it could be the injector itself depending on what was shimmed.

You're certain the #7 injector (or all of them for that matter) are properly seated?

I would still replace the #7 cup and o rings to be sure.
 

greenskeeper

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The only problem is it was leaking like a stream and within two days it was not leaking at all and holding pressure for days. That can't be surface rust right?! This is such a crazy situation.
Not surface rust, no way.

Sounds like the four possibilities listed, and you may have more than one issue going on at the same time:

1) injector o ring

2) injector cup

3) injector failure (depending on what you shimmed)

4) oil cooler failure
 
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