powerstroke trouble. can you guys please help

i have an 04 f-350, it has no power past 2000 rpm. i put on new fuel filters and the air filter is clean. it starts good and it does not miss. sometimes i can push it to the floor and all it does is black smoke and it will barely pull it self. any suggestions ? 

Sounds like a 6.0l.  Good luck fixing that thing yourself.  I work at a ford dealer and the diesel guys here bang their heads against the wall diagnosing those things.

Edited by Roddo - 07 Oct 2010 at 6:32pm

Sounds like turbo vanes stuck. Do you hear the turbo whistle much? If it sounds like lots of turbo, the vanes are probably stuck closed. Closed vanes make for a high speed exhaust restriction. Get it fixed pronto. Overboosting is the number 1 cause of blown head gaskets on those. You might pop the EGR valve CAREFULLY out of the intake and clean it up. Sticking EGR valves will make them smoke a bunch too. Grease the O rings on it before you stick it back in. Hey Roddo, thats me. I get all of them at the Ford dealer I work for. I'll take a 6.0 any day over the 6.4's. The ancient 7.3's can be fun, especially in a van. Nothing like broken wires and other stuff that breaks just from being looked at.

Edited by Brian Jasper co. Ia - 07 Oct 2010 at 6:37pm

Mine had the same symptom, EGR valve was junk, ran fine after was changed, than 2 years later the EGR cooler and oil cooler took a crap at the same time, was out of warranty by date of mfg. was lucky enough it didn't take the turbo, $2100 later it has all the updated parts on it, the ford tech said with the updates I should not have a probelm again, make sure your flush the cooling system once a year, cause build up causes the EGR cooler to let go, thats what happened to mine 2 weeks before I had it scheduled to get it flushed, Iwas doing it every 2 years, it will be done everyyear from now. I really like the truck its never been a dog on power, mine has an MBRP exhaust kit, AFE intake, and bully dog 50hp tuner to help things a bit

there are a number of possibilites. i would recommend on cleaning the EGR valve, what a fussy pile. i clean mine twice a year just to be safe. as long as its not blowing white smoke, your good. otherwise head gaskets, EGR, oil cooler, all common. HPOP and injectors go too. but other then that its great..haha

i'm still thinking its the turbo. sounds way to much like a turbo problem. what do you run for warm up and cool down time on it?

The shop were I used to work had an 05 that acted like that for me about 200 miles from work. We slowed down to about 30 in 5th gear and it smoothed out. Sped back up and it puked black smoke again. Did this about 4 times then finally took off and ran fine. When we got home and the dealer had come and serviced the truck I asked what was wrong with it. The idiot told me it was time for an oil change so they changed it. The truck wasn't due for an oil change by any means. It has been a continual sore spot for the boss so it has been setting by the road for sale for about a year and a half. Trade it off on a 7.3 or go to a government motors vehicle or Dodge.

Roddo i know what you mean about being cramped under the hood. i went to the shop to check on my truck one day,they had the cab and front clip raised up off of the frame. i asked what they were doin he said they were changing a head gasket. that's crazy. i'll let you guys know  what i find out. thanks again 

6 liter Powerstrokes,  a total black eye for ford,  I was that engine and the lawsuits between them and Navistar over warranty issues, which started Ford to build their own new diesel,  Our company has run many and have quite  a few friends with them, definitely the most popular diesel trucks out there.  I could go on for hours on the problems i have seen, got to be the biggest POS ford has ever built. I'm glad i went from the  good 7.3 to a cummins and skipped that one. I think that new one needs a few years also before i would have faith in Ford again.   Cummins is the only way to go, there is a reason all highway tractors and off road diesels are inline sixes.

The 6.7 is the most tested engine Ford has ever built. So far we have sold plenty of them and I've only seen them back for LOF. The 6.7 has actually been out for more than a year with Florida Light and Power. Even with the pollution controls on them they still get close to 20 mpg.

Your Duramax is quieter, not by much, but there is a difference.

The 6.7 is the same. Oil is coal black. GM just hasn't figured out that to get better mileage they only need to use 4 cylinders to dump fuel in the exhaust to heat the catalyst to clean the DPF.

V8 Duramax. worlds fastest diesel. V8's are junk? 

Our fleet has ten service bodies, each sitting on an F450 LWB dually chassis.  Our changeout policy, is every two model years, or when any ONE of the chassis hits 100,000 miles.  We had 7.3's, 6.0's, and 6.4s.

Our observation, is that the 7.3 was the best.  The greatest failure rate for our trucks of that vintage lay in the transmissions... but the engines were great.  Our average fuel economy was between 14-16mpg with our service bodies.

6.0's... quiet and powerful, averaged about 13mpg... but incredibly unreliable. They'd die on the highway about every 8-12,000 miles, required a tow to nearest dealer, replacement of the HPOP, and usually several jammed-up injectors.  I'm not sure how anyone could claim any confidence in these, as the mounting of the pump, the overhang of the gears, and the cross-cut gear are clearly insufficient for the loading, and to make matters worse, they parked the turbocharger right over that friggin' pump.  I looked at Navistar's original drawings, the pump design is totally different... so the stupid mounting setup was a FORD idea.  To make matters worse, the 'designated' solution was to remove the damaged pump and seal, and install... exactly the same crap.  What would have made a WHOLE LOT more sense, would be to correct the design, either by extending the overhanging support, or using a pump and seal setup that provided a wider plane of physical support (and relieved the hydraulic coupling from stress and vibaration), OR just nix the whole danged pump, put a pair of adapter flanges and two braided-stainless lines to a good old-fashioned hydraulic pump driven off the serpentine belt.  Our dealer's promise was "They're replacing the engine with the new 6.4, so those problems will be solved".

Well, the 6.4 didn't kill HPOPs... the fuel filter concept was intolerable, as dealerships would charge us for changing the fuel filters, but only change the upper (not lower) element, which resulted in... poor fuel feed and black smoke.  Again, we were humilated with breakdowns and poor dealer service when far-from-home.  To make matters worse, our LWB quad-cabs had so much fuel-line length, and the fuel lines were so small, that they simply wouldn't flow fuel below 15 degrees with any measure of trust.  Ford's first answer was "you can't use biodiesel, has to be non-bio ULSD".  Totally asinine response, because ALL ULSD found anywhere, was bio.  They made a serious mistake by telling us that we were using lousy fuel, needed to buy from a reputable retailer that 'didn't have old stagnant fuel'... {that argument didn't last long- we're not called the 'world's largest truckstop' for no reason}.  They then told us that we were using the 'wrong additives', finally told us we had to buy the FORD additive (which had absolutly NO effect, aside from doubling the cost of a fuel-up).  The ONLY thing that would keep 'em running (albeit, limited to about 45mph) during -10F days, was piling snow around the sides of the truck and starting the Miller Bobcat inside the service body.  Exhaust piped under the truck would warm the fuel tank, and that'd get me enough fuel flow to manage 60mph for at least an hour-and-a-half, then just constantly add fresh fuel to keep the jelly-tank warm.  I even resorted to wrapping the fuel lines in insulation, and putting a piece of heat-tape on the line, with a power inverter running the tape.  Yeah, it kept me from gelling, as long as the tank stayed warm.  Our fleet was essentially paralyzed for that entire winter.  When they ran, they ran well.  When it was cold, they wouldn't.  When it was running, but in 'particulate filter regen mode' it would have no power, and belched black smoke.  For the first few months, the regen situation ran apparently as-normal.  After the first winter gelling, they essentially stayed in regen mode perpetually.  Dealer couldn't even get it straightened out.  Fuel economy for these was about 7.5mpg.

The next chassis cycle was pre-empted by our dealer ordering new chassis without first consulting us... they ordered 16,500gvw (we can't go over 16k), and they ordered the new diesels.  They ate that entire shipment, as we rejected 'em, instead, ordered 16kgvw with V10 gas power.  Initially, dealer said Ford wasn't offering it, so we put out an RFQ with Sterling (Dodge).  About three days later, news came back that they WOULD build us the V10.  We wound up with one 6.4 (the one that didn't get rejected in time) and the balance of V10's.  We're all around 50,000 on the V10's and have had 'em in service for just over a year.  They're not as torquey as the diesels, but oil-changes are a WHOLE LOT cheaper.  Fuel costs are no different (although they wouldn't build our long chassis with dual gas tanks), fuel economy is around 6mpg.

The one 6.4 that we have, expired at 31,000 miles, somewhere in western Wyoming... 58mph on the highway, coming down a slight grade, it went bang, knocked a few times, and died.  It was towed to a dealership over a month ago, and has sat there ever since.  Our technican rented a Toyota pickup (all he could), moved his necessary tools into the bed, and continued to his assignment, did his assignment, then drove home, as dealer had not even opened the hood.  Last we heard, Dealer was told by Ford to remove and dismantle the engine before they would authorize any repairs.

My guess is that we'll be dispatching another truck out to recover the body and tools, then abandon the chassis, as dealer hasn't even opened the hood... which appears to be the S.O.P. anymore.  I'm certain we won't replace it with another  Power Stroke, and most likely, perhaps not a V10 gasser.  My gut feeling is that the next chassis series will say Sterling.

iv never been a ford guy never has worked out we run a 99 cummins it gets 19 to 23 and we just got a 05 ton and its the strongst truck iv set down in next to a duramax