Gillumap

1999 f250 7.3 PSD w/ 180,000mi Last week harmonic balancer went out while driving, serp belt came off and parked on road side. Pryed pulley on balancer back forward enough for the belt to stay on 1/2mile back to the house. Replaced harmonic balancer, refilled radiator with plain water(had to remove radiator to replace balancer) and tried to crank it. Starter engaged but wouldn't turn the engine over. Kept hitting the starter until it finally turned over and started with a puff of white smoke. Never seen any smoke until that time. Drove around the block and when I tried to start it again, same thing. This kept happening but when it started is ran perfect and sounded fine. Didn't happen every time, but each time it was hard to crank, I got that puff of white smoke. Had to keep hitting the starter until it would break free enough to crank. Replaced both batteries, cables and starter. No help. Replace the starter 3 more times (all reman crap from autozone, it's possible they could have all been bad), no help. Installed new Denso heavy duty 4kw starter and engine cranked but with bad noise. Turned the key off and tried to crank again and this new starter wouldn't even turn it over. But when I tried I heard that same noise again and haven't tried again. I've put around 1500 miles on it since this started and its ran fine just really hard to get turned over intermittently. Please tell me what's wrong with this thing.

Gillumap

Valve cover on driver side pulled, small water dropletts on #4,6,8 glow plugs. About to go pull passenger side and check them. At this point it is looking like a water problem. I know very little about these engines so please let me know how to proceed. Thanks for the advise.

Gillumap

Pulled all the glow plugs and cranked it over a couple of times. About 1 to 1.5 cups of water came out of #5. My guess is blown head gasket. Turning it over didn't produce any strange/bad noises, so hopefully I haven't bent a rod. Nothing came out of any of the other cylinders thankfully. I have stripped it down now to the point that I just need a helper to pull the head. Once I get inside I'll be able to see more of what happened.

USAdiesel

Sounds like you are going down an ugly road. Once you get the head off inspect the head gasket, and inspect the block. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I have seen a lot of Powerstrokes crack blocks. Check the engine oil level, and look evidence of coolant in the oil. If you have heavy amounts of coolant you might want to drop the oil pan and look at your bearings. Also check the turbo, it doesn't take much water to take out the turbo bearings. If you need or want any tech. advice, email me off list and I will do my best to help you out.

Cronicus

theres a fast way to tst that if the engine is completly not turning over
take of the radiator hoses, and glow plugs and connect ur garden hose to one of the hoses clamp turn the hose on full, see if anything comes out, if anything does come out, dont feel bad it was already gone