Just bought an 1990 f250 7.3

[HorseBack4x4Gal]

I was looking for some info on this truck.
I bought it for $3300. has 160k Runs great. 5 speed seems strong.
Problems... Are It gets a White and some blue smoke (No Black smoke at all)
Tell you what I do know about the truck. It fires right up when started. The Oil gauge stays right about in the Mid area. The eng is Smooth running.
Oh almost forgot it has a ATS Turbo on it.

It seems to be a really nice truck. Oil looks good. The guy always used the Purple stuff in the coolnat..


Oh yeah it also has a Nasty smell.

 

[HorseBack4x4Gal]

I forgot to add that there is alot of smoke at start up. (White with Blue tint)
LOts when cold.
When you let off the Throttle there is smoke.

 

[Russ]

160K miles it could be time for a set of injectors or a injection pump. Please read the FAQ section of the IDI forum http://oilburners.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=80and you will find lots of good info for new owners. BTW Welcome to oilburners.

 

[TOTHEMAX!]

x2 on the injectors

 

[Dieselguy123]

My truck also smokes sometimes when you start it up, sometimes worse than others. I had my timing set and that seemed to help alot, now I just get a little white smoke on startup but clears up within about a 1 min. Also your glow plugs could be going bad also, you could have one or two thats not working at all which will make that problem also. Fuel condition also can make this problem worse, if you have water in the fuel or its just old and dirty, Thats all I can think of, -Brad-

 

[adrianspeeder]

Howdy and welcome to the forum!

Adrianspeeder

 

[DeepRoots]

This morn I fired her up to go to the jobsite.... it stumbled on the first spin, but kept goin. sounded like hell.... but a good hell.

not saying it smokes alot, but when it finally got running two birds fell dead outta the sky.

 

[Russ]

As the Injection pump wears, it loses some timing causing more grey/blue smoke.

 

[dsblack]

Them dead birds... turkeys by chance?

 

[Mr_Roboto]

Of course you need to get the old fuel out of the system. But excessive snoke on a cold start can be caused by one or more bad glow plugs. If the cylinder isn't warm enough to fire the diesel, the motor just pumps the gassified raw fuel right out the exhaust.

 

[DeepRoots]

sorry mr black.
I came home 6:30pm to a bowl of mashed taters.
no turkey here... plus my wifes family is comming here soon, and they are all vegetarians.


back to the original ???
as far as smoke, I've got brand new injectors, IP, and compressions great.

all glow plugs work etc etc, fires in like 1/10th of a second. It's still gonna smoke on a cold start. Between burning off moisture, and not 100% of the fuel burning, etc

if it is smoking when it's warmed up, you have a problem.
Either way, I'd run the truck on the highway, get everythings moving and loosened before I started throwing parts at it.

if it really hasn't been driven in 8months, I'd make sure the batteries are good, throw in alot of diesel kleen (or even pump out the old fuel, add new if it'd make you feel better). I'd drive it 500 miles and change the oil, also change the Fuel filter and air filter at that time.

you'd be surprised how many problems are just little overlooked things on these motors.

 

[HorseBack4x4Gal]

I forgot to add in there that the truck starts right up and don't start smoking intil few mins after start up. I can hear when I hold up the RPMS that there is a miss there.
I really didn't think it was the Glow plugs just because it was right up and not smoking right away. But I don't know a lot about Diesel Engs.. Years of working on gas stuff. Not much different but I need to learn how this system works.
How do you check and set the timing on these things?
Thanks for you input..

 

[towcat]

I forgot to add in there that the truck starts right up and don't start smoking intil few mins after start up. I can hear when I hold up the RPMS that there is a miss there.
I really didn't think it was the Glow plugs just because it was right up and not smoking right away. But I don't know a lot about Diesel Engs.. Years of working on gas stuff. Not much different but I need to learn how this system works.
How do you check and set the timing on these things?
Thanks for you input..

firstly, welcome to the site. you will find the knowledge base here is pretty good. most here have learned from the school of skinned knuckles and bad backs.
Let's start with the basics. From what I read of your post and over at the "other" site, no mention on how long it took for you "wait to start" light stayed on. 10-12 seconds indicates that all if not most GP's are lighting up. If the light goes out quicker than that, you may have at least 3 bad Gp's. Do some reading on glow plugs in the articles section here. There are two items that is the archilles heel on these motors. the feul return system and the GP's are the two items that cause the most problems. Your reports of bad idle and a high RPM miss is a clear idication of a cold hole...ie one of the cylinders is not warm enough to do what it is supposed to do. If the problem does clear up after a few mins, you're ok. If not, a compression test is in order. A further explaination is needed to determine which hole has the issues.
Lastly, do yourself a favor by running a couple of tanks of clean fresh feul, along with a fresh feul filter. iirc, you mentioned the truck sat for some time. Many problems are made worse by bad feul.

 

[DeepRoots]

so doesn't smoke until a few minutes.

just a shot in the dark, maybe the timing is way retarded.... the cold idle switch advances the timing enough for it to run well, but when the engine hits 110 or whatever and switches off, it smokes.

I'd also check all the metal injector lines (both ends) and make sure they aren't leaking.

 

[Russ]

so doesn't smoke until a few minutes.

just a shot in the dark, maybe the timing is way retarded.... the cold idle switch advances the timing enough for it to run well, but when the engine hits 110 or whatever and switches off, it smokes.

I'd also check all the metal injector lines (both ends) and make sure they aren't leaking.

That is a sign of a worn out pump. The advance plunger wears allowing the static timing to become slightly retarded. With the cold advace working, the timing is advanced, until the cold advance kicks off, then the static timing is retarded again.