Rough idling and blueish smoke

[Alain K]

Hey guys, i have an 03 F250 in need of some help here. Once started a constant blueish white smoke emits from the tail pipe. Its very heavy upon cold starts and then calms down some but still smokes plenty. Also i'm noticing that the idle is very rough, it stays between 600-700 rpm. Can't get a stable reading on the odb2 reader. No codes have been thrown. I'm thinking a cylinder or 2 may be bad

Any ideas of were to start ??? I've done some searching and it sounds like it could be the egr cooler, but would that also cause a rough idle?

Thanks

 

[95_stroker]

Is this 03 a 7.3L or 6.0?

 

[Alain K]

Opps. its a 7.3.

 

[95_stroker]

I see you are in Fla, has the truck seemed worse during this recent cold snap you guys are experiencing? Once the engine is good and warmed up (after a drive) does the idle smoothe out?

If I had to take a guess I would say you might have some bad glow plugs. If you have an OHM meter available you can ohm them out and see if there are weak ones.

 

[Alain K]

I just took delivery of this truck a couple of weeks ago and due to dead batteries i haven't touched it until today. The weather was nice and hot today at 80*. The idle doesn't smooth out at all, no matter how long its on. You still think it could be the glow plugs?

Looks more to me now that the smoke is probably oil not water/coolant. Can a compression test be done on a diesel just like its done on a gas motor? As you can tell i'm a newb when it comes to diesels.

 

[95_stroker]

Do you know when the last time all the filters (all filters, oil, fuel and air intake) were changes as well as the crank case oil itself and what type of oil is in the crank case?

I know, I am answering your questions with more questions for you to answer but we need to get to the bottom of the history before we can give you an accurate diagnosis from afar.

 

[hheynow]

The weather was nice and hot today at 80*.

I get jealous easy.

 

[Alain K]

Nope don't have any maintenance history on the truck. My issue here is if theirs a dead cylinder, i don't think i'm keeping this pos. I don't have the time right now for a rebuild, already dealing with my turbo'd 98 cobra that popped 2 pistons. Now you can see why i'm trying to find a quick answer to my problem, lol. This truck needs a lot of other work as is...

 

[Alain K]

I get jealous easy.

We had one cold day last week with a low of 39*. South florida != boost friendly weather.

 

[95_stroker]

With the proper scan tool you can do an injector buzz test to insure the injector solenoids are firing and you can also do a CCT test. How many miles on the engine? I would find it unusual for it to have two dead holes.

The reason I asked about the oil is the PSD is finicky about oil, the injectors are fired by high pressure oil and with old/dirty/wrong grade it is common to get a rough idle.