7.3 injector miss?

[smithman]

I have 5k miles on rebuilt injectors and a baby moose pump. This morning it started rough but smoothed out after a bit. After warming up it runs fine at idle. Around 1500rpm it starts to shudder a little bit. It's from the engine...it does it when not moving. Can anybody confirm an injector issue? When at 1500 rpm, there is a puff of white smoke when it slightly misses.
I'm going to run some atf to see if it improves.
Right now I'm 1200 miles from home so a little concerned. How long is it OK to run on a bad injector?

 

[OLDBULL8]

To try and find a bad injector, after it's warmed up, just loosen each injector line AT the injector, one at a time, then tighten. A bad one will NOT make a difference in engine performance, good injectors will make the engine miss.

You can run the engine all day with a bad injector, you get less power, and some smoke out the exhaust. With a leaky or open injector, you might even hear a tick or knock at idle.

Keep an eye on the engine oil level, a really bad injector could add fuel to the oil.

Please tell us where you got the injectors from.

 

[icanfixall]

Bad thing about an injector that hangs open is this allows hot combustion gas to run back up the injector. Then it has happened where it burns out the plastic return cap. Be careful and feel the hard lines near the injector line nut. If you find a hot one you know that injector is hanging open and MUST be changed. The ATF is a good idea and it wont hurt anything. I think you are ok to run this with no issues. Where did you get the injectors from?

 

[smithman]

Thanks for the responses guys. It is also blowing Blue smoke indicating oil consumption, but dipstick shows level ok for now, though a little lower than when it was filled. Something to keep an eye on. I am at 8500 ft elevation currently if that is compounding the issue.

Added a quart of atf to the side tank and idling it now. I have a 2nd quart - ok to add too?

Injectors are from idiperformance.

 

[79jasper]

With a diesel, you can't compare smoke colors to those of a gas engine.
Oil could be blue, or no smoke at all. Oil is a fuel.
Blue could be fuel also.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk

 

[typ4]

Make sure they are torqued properly.
Here is a listof injectors I have had returned to me for warranty.
stuck open, injector was cooked from bore not being clean and gasses heating/ruining it. Not warrantied
dead, wouldnt open, injector pressure passage cracked thru to bleed passage, was fine on pop tester before shipped, full warranty
spring went weak, made a miss/fuel knock due to early opening. full warranty
stripped line threads, replaced with used top body because hey, everyone makes a mistake.
dirt in a whole set of injectors, ruined them in 10 minutes. No warranty. I posted that cleanliness is very important on these units,
Just some reasons and things to check.

 

[smithman]

type4, these are good things to watch for..... thanks for the info.
To close the loop on this for everybody's benefit:
I put ~8oz of ATF directly into the fuel filter. Then, dumped the rest of a quart in my side tank. After 30 minutes of idling, nothing had changed. As I drove away to drive about 10 miles back to where I started, the injector had freed up shortly into the drive. It got stuck again later in the day as I was driving short distances. It was still stuck the day after and was an SOB to start up - took nearly 10 seconds of cranking to get it going. 2nd day after was departure day. It was even harder to start but fired up. I dumped half of a 2nd quart of ATF into the side tank and drove it. Over about 30 minutes of driving the injector went between stuck and unstuck. Injector gave me 1200 trouble free miles back home. Injector is unstuck as of now and working "normally" with no ATF.
So, I have confirmed that ATF can really work on a stuck injector.
But I have not confirmed which injector was the original problem.
I have extra injectors and my custom socket at home for untorquing them with the IP in place. I think I'll throw them in my toolbox for future trips in case this happens again.