I have a 2000 Ford Excursion which I am having difficulty starting. It started running very rough while I was driving. I pulled off to the side of the road and it continued to run very rough. (Note: It was very cold -16 Celsius). Truck was running fine for about 1 hour before the rough running started. I turned truck off and emptied fuel bowl, the water in fuel light was not on. However, the bowl was fairly full. I had it towed to my garage - replaced the fuel filter and now it will not start. I noticed the fuel bowl is about half full of fuel and the truck cranks at about 100 rpm when I try to start but does not turn over - any ideas? I hear a noise I think from the fuel pump when I am heating the glow plugs.

 

Need to check for Fuel pressure, turn the key on and open the fuel drain valve. You should have fuel leaking onto the floor.

Do you have anyway to read codes?

You need to have fully charged batterys to get her to fire, get the batterys on a charger and try again.

The excursions have a Glow Plug controler that like to go out, but if she was running and quit I am leaning to Gelled fuel.

 

Glow plugs, GPCR, all replaced last year. I noticed that the fuel bowl doesn't fill up when the key is turned on. I took the lid off the fuel bowl and noticed a lot of bubbles when the key is turned on. It would bubble for about 10-12 seconds and then the bubbling would stop. Any suggestions?

P.s. no visible signs of leaks, no wet spots or puddles on the floor.

 

bad fuel pump?

 

You have jelled fuel, or a bad fuel pump...

10-15 seconds is as long as the fuel pump stays on without the truck running. Is the truck parked in a heated shop now? Get some fuel treatment and put that in the tank.


How long have you owned the truck? Is there any chance someone added a pre pump filter at some point and it could be plugged? Dont ask how I know that, because I added one and forgot about it years ago... left me on the side of the road waiting on a tow truck, cuz I was a retard...LOL

 

Thanks for all the suggestions. it turned out that it wasn't gelled fuel or a bad fuel pump. The problem was the motor oil. A week before this happened I changed the oil in the truck; following the manuals direction I put in 10w/30 instead of the 15/40 I normally have in it. I don't know if it's not cold enough here to run 10/30 or if I didn't use the right kind of 10w/30 but that was the problem. I guess it overheated and foamed and affected the ICPS. Anyway, I changed the oil back to Rotella T as well as changing the oil in the high pressure pump resevoir, and the truck fired on the first crank.

 

hm, that really sounded like a fuel problem though, usually if you have the fuel pump running and you crack the lid on that fuel filter, fuel starts pissing everywhere because of the pressure. but seeing how these motors run on oil pressure that sounds right too, you should be able to run 10w30 in it no problem, although i dont recommend it at all because 15w40 is alot better. but low oil level would cause that problem, not viscosity.

 

Nothing in the manual says to use 10-30... Read again... says 30wt. Diesel rated...

But I doubt that was your issue, more then likely the gelled fuel ungelled and you changed the oil (which is good...).

A PSI will run with the wrong oil, just have idle and driving issues.


Glad its fixed!