I have a 2000 f350 powerstroke 7.3....I should start by saying I know very little about engines ....my 350 has a 9' utility body on it....recently I dropped the truck off at a local mechanic/body shop to get some advice on replacing the utility body which has some serious rust problems....I agreed to leave the truck at their shop while we figured out if we would put a new utility body or if we would be able to find a used one at a substantial saving....the truck sat there ...inside...for about eight months...finally the shop owner referred me to another local company that would put a new utility body on it....he asked me to come down a pick it up as soon as I could....I asked him to inspect it for me before I picked it up...he agreed...when I went in to pick it up he told me he had e real tough time starting the truck....his exact words went something like this...."man that thing was a bear to start...I had to use just about a whole can of starting fluid to get it running...also it's blowing a lot of white smoke"
After he said that i told him I just plug in the heater for a few hours before I want to start it and that always works fine....

I drove the truck back to my house...approx 1/2 mile away from shop and noticed the smoke he was talking about....the truck had NEVER done that before ....I parked it in my driveway and used another truck I have for work
Every day I would start it for a few minutes just to run it...I thought it might help burn off some of the smoke...
After doing this for a week I decided to take it to another local mechanic who works exclusively on diesels ...
He called me later that day and told me I had a blown head gasket
He confirmed it with a few tests
He then asked me if I had used starting fluid to get it running ....
I told him what had happened with the other mechanic and he said that is what blew the head......before I go any farther with this I was wondering if anyone here thinks this is what blew the head
I have a feeling he's going to say that it sitting for so long is what did it...or something like that..... It has sat before...as long as I plugged it in it started and ran beautifully
2000 f350 110,000 miles.....no previous engine problems


Any help or advice appreciated

 

The kind of damage that I have seen from use of excessive starting fluid was tops of pistons blown off and ring lands blown apart. If the heads are removed and that type of damage is present , you might show the guy that used excessive starting fluid the results and seek some kind of compensation. It's a tough call either way and maybe Hayapower can offer some additional info that might help with this one.

 

Would the damage you described cause oil to run into the coolant reservoir ?
The diesel mechanic said when he opened the lid to the radiator he found a lot of oil in the radiator....it was sitting on top of the coolant. I noticed that the heat as intermittent during the week I was keeping it in the driveway.
Like I said....up to that point the truck was running like a champ...the non-diesel mechanic usually docent do any engine work on the truck...I use him for inspections and tire rotations and such...for anything else I take it to the diesel guy...the worst part is he didn't even need to use the starting fluid....plugging it in for an hour or two always does the trick....I like the guy ...but I feel like he should know better

 

I'm wondering if there is something that would prove that the starting fluid is what caused the damage....I,d hate to accuse someone of negligence if that wasn't the case...even though I feel like that is what did the damage he could easily claim it had nothing to do with it

 

As you know anything could have happened while the truck just sat. Head gasket problems are not that unusual, but might be better to decide once the engine is opened up and checked more thoroughly.

 

I agree with Hanky..

Being you had to plug in the block heater to get a more normal start, could be that the glow system, glow plug relay, UVC harness's could have had a problem. At least in the beginning. 110K is not a lot of miles for a 2K 7.3, and late models didn't have a large number or head gasket failures, at least in stock profile.

Being he used a whole can of fluid, or close (and didn't blow himself up, or a flash burn out the intake) leads me to believe the glow control wasn't working or active.

There are other issues that can cause for an extended crank/start time, but hard to know without some hands on time.

But,, if he emptied a can of fluid trying to get it started, (might have be exaggerating) sounds like there may have been more than one problem. Even with an inactive glow control, with a 'short shot' of ether it should have fired up, at least on the prime..

Like Hanky, I've seen these with no glow control working at all, and repeated ether starts cold. Seen a few with the sides of the piston,, ring lands and all, melted and blown down into the pan without taking out the head gasket first. But, in these cases, the engines just had massive blow by and ran rough. Usually pretty easy to tell at the oil fill cap/dip stick tube, or the blow by/emission connection at the intake hose if there's been a piston failure. Or even in some instances, an oil sample from the pan. White smoke can be from unburned fuel as well.

Using ether in excess creates a tremendous amount of combustion pressure and heat..

If you do have a blown head gasket, it should be reasonably easy to see the coolant level drop off if run for some time, or bubbles/overpressure in coolant tank. Any coolant in the engine oil? How's it run?

Did they run a cylinder compression/leak down test through the glow plug holes?. May give you an indication as to what happened, and all cylinders affected should there be any damage that may need a more intensive check. When air is applied, the coolant/air may indicate only a head gasket leak, or, if you hear air escaping into the pan (excessive blow by) then could be a piston/ring problem. Generally, a coolant system pressure test usually will detect a leak, but pressurizing the cylinders gives a more specific pinpoint check.

Excessive ether can cause a host of problems, head gasket, piston, cylinder damage. If it was running fine before,, with only a warming needed to help the start, and NOW has a failed piston/rings, would almost certainly be due to the ether. With a head gasket, could go either way, but due to the ether ('heat'/pressure) could of caused a failure.. Excessive heat can melt/damage the fire ring on the gasket around the cylinder bore causing a failure.

 

There does seem to be water in the crank case....there was a white pasty substance on the bottom of the oil cap. I'm wondering if I could have an oil cooler problem....seems like symptoms are similar...I'm not sure what tests the mechanic is running to come to the head gasket diagnosis...when I talked to him today it seemed like the oil in the radiator was what brought him to that conclusion.....I asked Him if he did a compression test....he said the engine has good compression....so I asked him if he felt like it could be something else....I wasn't getting too many straight answers ......I think m going to have to stop down there...the guy I'm talking to on the phone isn't the mechanic...he's the just the guy who answers the phone.....he didn't even know what a bgr cooler was...I asked him to check if that was bad before we dove into the head....again...I know very little about engines and the like....I'm not even sure what questions I should be asking....seems like some of these powerstrokes have had cooler problems and that the symptoms are similar to a blown head gasket....

Any thoughts

 

Btw.....I really appreciate the correspondence.....talking to people who understand this stuff helps a lot....thanks again in advance...to both of you

 

I was also wondering what the symptoms of a bad oil cooler were.... The first sign of a problem was that the heat was intermittent and the white smoke....the truck was running fine otherwise....the shop owner told me the truck wasn't running well now but there isn't any oil in the crankcase ....it's all in the radiator I guess....is there a test for the oil cooler? I told him to give me a price to replace it...

Thanks again

 

Cooling system pressure is normally in the 7-15 lb. range. Oil pressure on the other hand, can go as hi as 60+ lbs. when cold. So when the engine is running the oil can go into the cooling system. An oil cooler is one way. I do not know of another way to check the cooler other than to remove it and apply pressure to the cooling fittings. If there is a leak , it should show up then. There may be other methods of determining this , not sure. Let's hope it is just an oil cooler problem and getting into the engine won't be necessary. Best to take one step at a time, doing the simpler things first.