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1996 6.5 troubles

M

manlystanly

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Location
Illinois
Hey there guys. I was referred to this site by a guy on thedieselgarage.com.

I will just copy my original post from there to here, and then explain what I've done to try to fix the problem.

"So this is whats going on:
When I bought the truck the last owner told me that the rear tank has a pin hole in it and that the tank is missing some kind of plug or sensor or something that reads the fuel level in that tank, said its like a $10 part he just never replaced cause he didn't use the truck much.

So since it can't read the rear tank it doesn't draw fuel from it, so basically I have only the front tank. The fuel gauge is broken because of this, it always reads E, accept for when I just filled it up then it reads 1/2 tank for a few minutes.

Anyway, he told me that till I get it fixed I should fill up frequently and that if it starts to buck and run rough that means I'm getting low on fuel. So day two after the purchase rolls around and I'd driven it home from quite a distance so my tank must have been getting low cause it started bucking and cutting out so I got to the station and filled up and all was fine after that.

So this was during my busy season and I didn't want to take time to get her fixed till THIS time of year, so I would just wait till she started bucking and kicking and get to the station.

Eventually I just started going every morning to avoid problems and because I was sure that type of treatment wasn't good for her. Well then not long into that she becomes a rough start, and then she started acting like she was out of fuel when I'd just filled up.

And she also started doing this thing where she just lost power, I'd be going along at a good clip and she'd start to seriously lose power. Even with the pedal floored all the way eventually she wouldn't even go over 20 mph and as soon as I'd pull over she'd die and it would take me forever to get her started again.

So I thought maybe there was air in the lines and I bled the air out from that valve on the front of the motor, little air bubbles came out and she'd die, so I just kept repeating the process of cranking it and trying to bleed air out till eventually she would start. I kept up this "bleeding the lines" thing for several weeks, it became worse and worse till I was doing it several times a day.

Now she just won't start. I've drained the batteries completely and had no luck. Just got them recharged but I haven't messed with the truck anymore as I'm sure my old jerry rigged methods of starting her up will do no good."


Today I replaced the inline fuel pump and the fuel filter.

I was going to replace the ops too but based on its location and the difficulty I would have getting it swapped out I decided to see if what I did made the difference first.

Well, it did start up the second round of cranking and it idled great. I let it idle for about 10 minutes and it was fine so I pulled it out of my garage and when I got ready to pull it onto the road for a test drive it started bucking.

So I thought I'd go ahead and pull over to my dump pile and dump some debris that was in the back.

It bucked all the way over there until it died. I did get it going again but it was very difficult to restart, after I dumped it I decided to park it back where it was and it died 3 times on the way there which is about 300 feet.

This is my only work truck and I have potentially heavy snow moving in over the weekend, I have to get this thing going PLEASE HELP!!!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Sounds like the tank sock is plugged.

Have you checked the T drain for flow while it's running?
 
Just reread and with the air bubbles there could be a bad fuel line letting air in. Put a clear hose on the return fuel line and watch for bubbles.
 
The return line is coming off the injector pump? A couple mechanics told me that I need to replace the injection pump itself...but thats about $1000 for the part alone, and considering it took me all day to replace the lift pump and the filter I don't know if I could personally do the injection pump and that leaves me paying closer to $2000 for the repair.

Could the ops be a problem after all or since it runs the same with or without it hooked up does that mean its not the problem?

What is a "tank sock"?

If the T valve is the little valve on the front top of the motor, yes, its what I was using to drain air out of the lines when I thought that air in the lines was the problem. After I started doing this I noticed that there was a hose coming off the front of the motor about halfway down that would pour out fuel when I opened the valve, and then the truck would die.
 
The return line is on the top front of the IP, it's the smaller line. The tank sock is a screen on the fuel line pickup inside the tank.

When bleeding air unscrew the knob on top of the fuel filter manager.

With early obd2 systems I'm not sure if your ops is the only source of power to the lp, later ones were also controlled by the ecm. Disconnect the wires to the lp and apply 12v to the wires, if you have a steady flow of fuel out of the drain it would point to a bad ops. The truck shouldn't stall when the drain is open.
 
Thanks for your suggestions guys. I'm going to check to see if I have fuel coming out of the t drain hose, based on what I read in other threads. The ops is still unhooked. I went to start it today and it was a hard start but it did run. However it idled rough and would die after less than a minute of running. I just don't understand why after I got the new parts on yesterday it fired up good on the second try and idled smoothly for ten minutes or so, then once I started driving it it started bucking and died, and now it behaves the same as before any repairs...

Good God I'm pulling my hair out here, why can't there just be a decent diesel mechanic in my area that doesn't want to jump right into replacing the most expensive part???!!!
 
well, i got the 1/4" clear hose. I guess I'll try it when I find the injector pump. But, I did turn the key to the on position and opened the t valve and fuel came out. But it only poured out for a few seconds before sputtering off and stopping flow. Is that bad or is that what should happen??
 
Just to be clear also, when I turn the key on I know the pump is pumping but I still have the ops disconnected, should I reconnect it too? could that be a problem?
 
glad to see you made it over, I think you will like it much better here at the 6.5L capital of the World Wide Web!

the lift pump only runs for a few seconds when the key is turned. it will start running again when the engine fires off.

Go ahead and re-connect the OPS, I just had you do that to test the relay. the relay is obviously good.

the t-valve is only for testing fuel flow, and draining water. the little valve on top of the filter is where you actually bleed the filter, so refrain from trying to bleed the filter from the t-valve.

good luck!
 
I should have also mentioned that this truck has dual tanks. The rear tank, or so the previous owner told me, has some kind of bad "plug" that reads the fuel level in it, so it doesn't draw off that tank. He said its a $10 dollar part and that he just never took the time to fix it cause it would run off just the front tank. I'm wondering if this could be a part of my problem.
I have the bed lifted and I'm looking at the rear tank, there are three lines ran to it and one electrical connection with a yellow plastic cap.

I can't for the life of me get the top off either one of these tanks to clean the socks, or figure out how to get the electrical pieces off the top of them. On the front tank it looks like it is put on by just rotating clockwise and there are two little metal clips or something that snap into place. The rear tank just appears to slide into placed by rotating clockwise.

I'll try to get some pictures up later.
 
Well, I reconnected my ops. I cannot find the damn fuel injector pump to hook my clear hose up to the return line. I had the truck idling ok for a few minutes so i took it out on the road. It drove fine for about 2 minutes then it died like someone turned the key off. Its never done this before, I've read elsewhere that a failed pmd causes that, it usually sputters out then eventually dies. It did this exact same thing probably 15 times before I was able to get it home, now the damn batteries are getting drained because it takes a couple cycles of long cranking to get it going and once I put it into gear and take off it sputters for about 2 seconds then dies completely. Once I got it home I started it up again and it idled pretty much fine for about 5 minutes before once again dying.

I may just have to take it somewhere and tell them to fix it, I have no physical help from anyone I know and I am far far far from being a diesel mechanic. There seems to be no GOOD complete pictures of my exact motor ANYWHERE on the internet with explanations as to what and where in the hell the parts are I'm looking for.

I'm about to the point of saying I'll never buy a diesel again. I didn't have this much trouble and frustration swapping out my 305 for a 350 in my last truck.
 
The IP is dead center in the valley at the front, You may have to remove the plastic cover to see it.

The IP has 2 lines on it, the one you want is the smaller one, 1/4".
 
manlystanly said:
Well, I reconnected my ops. I cannot find the damn fuel injector pump to hook my clear hose up to the return line. I had the truck idling ok for a few minutes so i took it out on the road. It drove fine for about 2 minutes then it died like someone turned the key off. Its never done this before, I've read elsewhere that a failed pmd causes that, it usually sputters out then eventually dies. It did this exact same thing probably 15 times before I was able to get it home, now the damn batteries are getting drained because it takes a couple cycles of long cranking to get it going and once I put it into gear and take off it sputters for about 2 seconds then dies completely. Once I got it home I started it up again and it idled pretty much fine for about 5 minutes before once again dying.

I may just have to take it somewhere and tell them to fix it, I have no physical help from anyone I know and I am far far far from being a diesel mechanic. There seems to be no GOOD complete pictures of my exact motor ANYWHERE on the internet with explanations as to what and where in the hell the parts are I'm looking for.

I'm about to the point of saying I'll never buy a diesel again. I didn't have this much trouble and frustration swapping out my 305 for a 350 in my last truck.
Click to expand...

Don't give up just yet here are some pics from our technical reference area http://www.thetruckstop.us/forum/showthread.php?9494-Part-Locations
 
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