Oil every where! '01 7.3 Diesel

So I just got back from the Dirty-D dropped my dad off at his bar in Sunnyvale, had a beer, then went out to my truck to drive the last 7 miles home. When I get to my truck I noticed a huge puddle of oil on the ground. I further investigated and found that it was my truck leaking the oil. The whole undercarriage was covered from the back of the bell housing all the way to the back of the truck. There was so much oil. I checked the dip stick and no oil registered. I heard no signs of this problem at all. I hope I have no other damage. My first guess was a broken rear main seal. But rear seals don't just fail all the way. So for now, I think its the HPOP (high pressure oil pump line) that has failed. I won't find out until tuesday what the real problem is b/c the Diesel tech doesnt work today. Anyone else have had this problem?

Probably the O-rings on the HPOP that is a common problem. I have had a few do the same thing.

2nd the 0-rings... i have the same modle truck and did the same thing about 5 years ago

also there is a plug that has orings in the back of the drivers cylinder head that leaks oil under pressure.

I will guess high pressure pump o-rings also. The dummy plugs in the head seemed to only be an issue on the pre 99' models. Make sure it's not trans fluid, those 4r100's like to puke front seals commonly. If you leak enough oil out the engine will not run, no feed oil for the injectors. Just an FYI.

It was definately oil. I checked the dip stick and it didn't register. Bawshogg, are you saying once the oil gets to low the engine will stop running before "hurting" itself? I hope so. That was my biggest concern.

Does anyone have an exploded view of this HPOP ring set up?

The injectors use the high pressure oil to work, so if there is not enough oil the injectors won`t work right. I had a truck do the same thing and the oil got low enough the injectors weren`t working right, and it ran very rough and poor. I filled it up with oil and fixed the leaking issue and the truck runs fine, and that was 2 years ago. I also had a cheap oil filter on another truck loosen u and start leaking. Check all the obvious things first like the oil filter... Good luck, Roger.

I forgot to mention check in your engine valley for oil.

That is correct, when the oil level gets too low the low pressure system cannot provide enough oil to supply the damands of the high pressure system and the injectors cannot fire off. Definetly take a look at the valley between the two cyl heads. That's where the oil will puddle and run out the relief hole at the back of the block. You can buy a kit from the dealership that has the necessary replacement o-rings. You don't wanna have to buy a high pressure pump,they are not cheap. I wanna say the o-ring kit is around 30-35 bucks retail. Should come with what ya need. It's actually the o-rings on the fittings that deteriorate and leak.

check out this page it should help you out
http://www.powerstroke.org/forum/7-3...diagnosis.html

If you want any more info just let me know i'll see what i can look up.

Thats very cool. Where do I buy a full manual for my truck? With all the exploded views and such? Thanks brian.

So you guys will get a kick out of this. I had the truck towed directly to the Ford dealership that was 3 miles away. Remember at the time I thought this was a major problem not a common issue. Also it was late Saturday night and wanted to have the truck in a safe place. So Ford did their diagnostic on it and came back with a bunch of crap. The first thing the service writer told me was my water pump was bad and needed to be replace? WTF? $1700 bucks. Ouch, Then he proceeded to tell me the oil leak problem was the HPOP and a bunch of other things which I did not follow b/c I was learning this via phone. But the bottom line, Ford wanted $3300 to fix the oil leak. He said it was 17 hours of labor. Ouch, so I towed it a ways to my local friendly diesel mechanic. He looked at it and said best case $1300, worst case if the pump needs to be replace $1800. Much better, and also he said my water pump is fine. By the way the shop rate at the Ford dealer is $140 an hour and the local diesel mechanic $100. I wish I had better luck at the dealerships in my area. But I am learning once you are at of warrenty they just find stuff to do and try and scare you into fixing things that aren't broken yet. I wish I didn't live in a world where things worked that way. I am glad that I found a stand up shop to take my truck to.

No problem dave. I'm a service advisor (writer) at a gm dealer, been in this business for almost 13 years (damn it been a long time lol). There is definitely some dishonest people in my proffession. I looked up the time on that job and 17 hours is a laughable. Should be closer to ten including cleaning up the oil and damn!!!! $140.00 an hour? Thats crazy we're only at $100.00, where are you located?

Nevermind i see San Jose in your profile that makes sense lol.

Wow I`m glad you found someone resonable. Here is a really good powerstroke forum powerstrokenation.com. You can get alot of info from there. Keep us posted as to what was wrong.

Funny thing is that you guys think 100/hr is reasonable ???

It is laughable that we think 100/hr here is reasonable. The reason the shop rates here are so high is b/c the land is so expensive. We miss out on some good things here in San Jose area b/c of that. I love going to Phoenix area and seeing all the really cool new restaruants. But here you get old piece of crap buildings. Anyway, for now its just my pressure lines that need fixing. My mechanic hope the gear that drive the HPOP is fine, if so I guess that will save me $500 in parts and labor.