7.3 wont start unless plugged up
 

Hey everyone Im David, Im new here and have some problems with my 7.3.

I have a 2000 f350 7.3 that refuses to start in the mornings. It runs fine when its hot but when it sits for several hours it wont start. When I try an start it it acts like it wants to and almost does but doesn't. When I plug it up it starts but runs very rough almost like it's running on 6 or 7 cylinders. I can let it idle for 20 minutes and it will clear up. If I drive it down the street as soon as I start it up it clears up by the time I get to the end of the street (half a mile). It's weird, why would it take so long to clear up when I let it idle but when I drive it it clears right up.

I replaced all the glow plugs, checked the glow plug relay (stays hot for about 45 seconds), Changed the oil in the pan and the injection pump, fuel and air filter, drained the fuel filter several times to make sure it didnt have water in it and cleaned it out really good. Put fuel treatment in the tank, Checked all the injectors and glow plugs through the valve cover gasket and had 3.2 ohms on the injectors and .08 on the glow plugs. This is after I replaced the glow plugs because I had some that were bad and one of the valve cover gaskets was bad. Also put a new fuel pump on it and all of this did not change it at all.

Took it to ford and they checked it out. It had 3 sensors that were bad. Air temp, oil temp, and the ICP sensor. They said those sensors would cause it not to crank when it was cold. They replaced 2 sensors that were recalled, cam and speed sensos. I brought the other 3 home and replaced them. The truck ran better but still didn't crank the next morning. They said bring it back so the next visit they said it was losing fuel pressure after it had been sitting for awhile. I had already thought about that before I had taken it there and replaced the fuel pump before hand so they suspected bad injector o-rings. I replaced the o-rings this past weekend and did another oil change and switched to synthetic and added a bottle of prolong in there. After new injector o-rings, fuel pump, glow plugs, valve cover gasket, sensors and all of my money this truck still wont crank unless it's plugged up. Someone please HELP

HPOP?

This may piss you off to find out this was something very simple. But I have seen this on way to many trucks and every single time a fresh set of brand new batteries fixed the entire issue. If you have low voltage and poor draw on the batteries it will cause the scan tool to say all kinds of things are wrong, my money would say those sensors had nothing wrong with them at all except they were getting low voltage from tired batteries therefor throwing a code.

Replace the batteries and I would be surprised if that did not solve all or your problems for 80 bucks

According to ford the hpop was ok. They also checked compression and did a buzz test and that all came back ok. I'm thinking it maybe in the tank. I have been reading about the problems that these have been having about the pick-up tubes getting clogged and air getting into the lines when it sits. I just went out and started it a few minutes ago, it has been plugged up for 2 hours. It fired right up but still runs rough for the first few minutes.

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Well I pulled both batteries out and had them checked. That was one of the first things I did before I started spending money. They are six months old and have 1200 CCA. The parts store said they passed with flying colors. I have only had this truck about a month now so I wasnt sure about the batteries and thats why I had them checked.

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Im sure it is somethen simple. And the batteries would make since, I drive it up the street and give the alternator time to build up and it runs fine. But I would hate to go spend almost 200 dollars on batteries if the parts store said mine were good. What I may try an do is hook the charger up and let it charge for awhile, get good and charged up and see what happens.