if anyone here owns one of these trucks and has to replace the valve cover gaskets (which are also part of the wiring harness for the glow plugs and injectors) start with the passenger side. the pass. side is the harder side to do that way when you finish that you know its down hill from there.... was not a hard job just required some patience. anyone ever has any questions feel free to shoot me a pm

 

I've been down that road a few times, and I don't envy you a bit.

What a wonderful example of north american automotive engineering that was. I mean, if you have to use glow plugs, which are notorious to fail, at least put them out there where you can get at them.

Oh, and running the upper rad hose through the accessory drive belt, another stellar idea.

I have that 01 550. yeah, my luck with powerstrokes is about as good as nothing. If I tried to use one for a boat anchor... it would float.

 

that is for a "DI" not "IDI" and most people would call them the "POWERSTROKE" also for advise on these valve cover gaskets, they are re-usable, and if the valve covers are off make sure you also check the sub-harnesses under the valve covers for melted wires and connectors. this can be pretty common.

 

valve covers, glow plugs, injectors or wiring are not that hard of things to service, and i would not complain at all about the 7.3 belt untill you do one on a 6.0 or 6.4 lol

 

I've been there. what I am saying, is you can fix broken, you cannot fix stupid. and a broken design born of stupidity in engineering is a sure-fire winner.

 

I guess that I need to tell my story about the Powerstroke 7.3. A friend of mine got some bad fuel and ruined the injectors. A shop replaced the injectors and in doing the job of the injectors replacement, stripped the threads on the insert in oil pan for the oil dip stick tube, bad oil leak, (we found this after he had the truck back for a week). To get the oil pan off the engine and back on, this engine has to be pulled. For the engine be pulled the front cap has to come off and the body has to be raised off the frame. I took a 4 inch hole saw to the side of the pan and replaced the part for the oil dip stick tube. Made a plug a bit larger than the hole and cut down the outside edge in a lathe. This allowed the plug to fill the hole, but not fall through, that weld it up. About three hours work compared to a couple days work.