No power cold

[Larry B]

I have a 01 7.3 superduty, about 160,000 miles. For a long time now when started cold the engine will speed up to maby 1200 and no faster. I am always parked on unevin dirt here at home and the truck will barley move to start. If a wheel is in a 6 inch hole I have to rock it back and forth to start. After a 1/4 mile it has full power and for the rest of the day is fine. Does any one else have this problem

 

[BigHazard]

Whats the outside temp? Are you just getting in and starting to go? Keeping her plugged in? Mine is a little cold blooded but nothing like that. Does the engine seem like its working and the transmission is not or vise-versa? They have lock up converters in these trucks. Possible its not locking up?

 

[Larry B]

Big Hazard
Thanks for the reply.. The morning temp has been 20* to 36* in the Am I do not plug in and it starts fine. I have checked this a little since posting and have determined it is engine only related. When starting in the am I can step on the throttle after 30 sec to a minute and it will turn up to about 1200 wide open still in nutral,let off and it will idle at about 800. If I go back to full throttle and hold ot wide open it will go back to 1200 then to 13 then 1400 and in about 1 minute it will have full rpms and go right to work. Pull like heck for the rest of the day, Even if it is parked all day after start up it goes right to work. It has done this for ages and does not seem to get any worse. The wife started to take it to town the other day and shut it off and came back in the house because she thought it was broke. Best she doesn't drive my truck anyway.
I just wondered if any other s have this experience.

 

[d-kuzmen]

Big Hazard
Thanks for the reply.. The morning temp has been 20* to 36* in the Am I do not plug in and it starts fine. I have checked this a little since posting and have determined it is engine only related. When starting in the am I can step on the throttle after 30 sec to a minute and it will turn up to about 1200 wide open still in nutral,let off and it will idle at about 800. If I go back to full throttle and hold ot wide open it will go back to 1200 then to 13 then 1400 and in about 1 minute it will have full rpms and go right to work. Pull like heck for the rest of the day, Even if it is parked all day after start up it goes right to work. It has done this for ages and does not seem to get any worse. The wife started to take it to town the other day and shut it off and came back in the house because she thought it was broke. Best she doesn't drive my truck anyway.
I just wondered if any other s have this experience.

This sounds normal for the 7.3 they don't like the cold, what usually happens is when it's cold it will close the off the exhaust backpressure valve to generate heat and get the engine temp up quickly when that valve is closed the engine will not rev up too much untill it see's an engine temp it likes then it will be fine. You may want to plug the truck in at night or allow some warm up time before driving off.

 

[Larry B]

Thank you both for your reply. I think you are right, my case may be a little extreme but I think if anything was failing it would have failed 100,000 miles ago.

 

[BigHazard]

Yep.. just a typical diesel.. You have to think about how close tolerance these engines are and the fact that they need to grow to operating temp and size. I try to let mine idle for a few minutes always.