#1- I have a '01 7.3 Excursion 2WD. 220,000 miles. It has a 4" exhaust, K&N filter and Edge Reprogrammer set on emission illegal. It gets the best fuel economy and moves out very well for 8000 lbs. Recently, I started to feel a surge while making light throttle acceleration. For example, round a corner at 35 and try to gently resume the 45 Speed limit. It begins to accelerate and then cuts out or surges, sometimes several times. If I lay into it, it responds fine. I have serviced the air filter, the fuel filter, use synthetic Amsoil. I did notice a slight improvement after the service. Less frequent cutting out or surging. I also was in an area where Bio diesel is readily available. I added almost a full tank of B10 Bio ***** and it seemed to help. Changed the fuel filter just after the bio ***** was consumed.

#2- I live near Charlotte, NC. It has been cold for NC. This morning it was +14 when I started the truck. It seemed to finally catch on maybe 2 cylinders with lots o' white/ blue smoke. It cleared out in a few minutes and seemed to be hitting on all 8, or at least 7. Once it warmed up, it's fine. But I had the codes p0672, p0674, p0676, p0678. My question is: Is there a common thread in the fact that it appears that I lost 4 glow plugs on the same bank?

One arm chair quarter back's response to the surging, is that the under valve cover injector wiring harness may be breaking down, especially since the truck has 220,000 and the valve covers have never been off. Has anyone experienced a condition like that?

I have a fresh turbo with the good wheel sitting ready. I have just been too lazy to swap it out. Would a fresh set of injectors be a wise choice, when I swap over?

Thanks in advance.

 

It does sound like the UVCH to me.

 

What he said^^^^^^^^^^. Most likely the clip. Those codes are for the driver side.

 

A loose connector will usually give you a P1316 code. Does the check engine light come on with the surging? Does it only happen at that one speed or rpm range? If you can duplicate the problem on a consistent basis, try going around the same corner, but manually shift to a lower gear first so your rpm's jump up. If it doesn't act this way at a higher or lower rpm, it may just be the ICP combined with that particular rpm range that's causing the issue. You can also try to go around the same corner with the truck set back to stock and see if your tuner is what's causing this.

How old is the oil in the truck, and are you putting any additives in the oil with extended drain intervals?

 

The surging started first with no codes. When the weather got really cold, the codes came on with the multiple starts on a few cylinders. My guess is that there are 2 conditions, which may not be related, or maybe they are? The hard starts seemed like the glow plug circuits were the problem.

 

The worst cut outs occurred when you are going from say 40 to 50, and the truck has settled into OD and the converter is locked up, lugging the RPM down. If I mat it out of frustration, downshift, rpm, trace of black smoke, no problemo!

 

This is the connection that comes loose. See the quarter Chris put to hole the connection from coming loose. I did that to both my connections, you have to put one tails and the other heads. lol. This is from Chris's gallery.

 

I will try that. Thanks.

 

having never had the valve covers off, that the connector is under them! I guess I will have to get greasey to fix this thing (too cheap to take it to a shop or, heaven forbid, a FORD dealer). No pain, no gain. If you want it done right...blah blah blah!
and various other cliche's.

Thanks for the help. I will let you know, when it is back to normal.

BTW, I got 19.3 on a long road trip with 6 adults and one grand daughter along. That was not taking it easy and multiple drivers over and under hills and mountains between Charlotte and Buffalo! This with the programmer set on off road only mode. It black smokes a little when the pedal is on the mat!
And I have been rear ended by an 18 wheeler, that bent my bumper and cracked the fiberglass doors. I saw him coming up fast and tried to accelerate away, but the other 18 wheeler stopped in front of me (I did not hit him) slowed my escape. A smaller vehicle would have had the bumper in the back seat or at least above the rear axle!
The next time I hear one of the old hens at the car wash insulting my "big gas guzzling behemoth", I might have to tell them how many of us (up to 8) can car pool in a safer vehicle with room to stretch out and still store our luggage without blocking the rear window and get 18+ mpg and can run on bio or veggie oil to boot!!

 

If you're going to pull the valve covers, do you have access to another vehicle? If it's not a connection issue, you'll want to change the glow plugs on that side as long as your in there.

Something else I can't recommend enough, while you're in there, re-torque the rocker arm pedestal bolts (red) to 20 ft-lbs, and the lower injector hold down bolts (blue) to 120 in-lbs. A couple of bolts tend to work their way loose over time, and the truck sounds MUCH better after you tighten things back up.



If you decide to do the quarter shim, you'll just need to grind off one edge so it fits in there and lets you get the valve cover back on. Don't forget to touch up the edges of your grind to make sure you don't have any shavings that get in there.

 

I appreciate all of the lessons, that hopefully I do not have to learn the hard way (sometimes spelled expensive way).

Did I mention that i am cheap? Uh, I mean thrifty. That's the Scottish translation for cheap. I am 50% Scotish, the other 1/2 you could guess to be Swedish by the last name Olson.

 

That's what this place is all about. You'll notice all the supporter badges you see here in the 7.3 section. Many of us have decided that the $20/year it costs to get the badge (which also gets rid of most of the advertisements) is well worth the money when it's compared to the money you can save by access to the knowledge that's here.

Re-torquing the rockers and injector bolts is something that became popular within the last year, even though Dan told us about this before then. When you check the torque on the bolts, be sure to let us know what you find. Almost everyone, if not everyone, who has done this has came back and reported finding a couple (or more) bolts loose, and those folks agree it does make the engine sound better when you put it all back together. We always like to hear more feedback on what others find when they check this.

 

Any results Clark???? I just bought an '01 F-250 7.3L 4x4 crew cab short bed with 120,000 miles on it. I've had the truck for a little over a month and guess what... same problem. Only I decided to take it to the FORD dealer... I know, I know, I'll never do that one again. So it cost me $180 to find out that the clip is loose. And the mechanic is like, well it just won't stay plugged in... yadda yadda yadda. So here I am on the phone asking is it a bad wire or just the clip... he has no clue. Long story short, it's the clip. A buddy of mine had the same problem and fixed it with the quarter trick... it's been there for a year with no issues.

I'm still a little shady about doing this but I think I'll do it this weekend.

How did your's turn out?

 

Welcome to FTE.

The quarter mod (by Chris) will take care of the harness getting loose again. I did it.

 

I have been too busy/ lazy to get into it. I just got another vehicle on the road and should be able to get after this, now that I can afford to lay the Excursion up for a while. I have a frest turbo with the improved wheel sitting here for a year and gauge pod to instal as well as a list of other minor items to fix. The trick is to actually start on them!