Coolant leak, head gasket ??

[Scottintexas]

On my phone so can't type to much,noticed

Pulled the boat back to the house today for summer, 15 min into 30 min trip at stop light noticed white smoke from under hood, temp gauge was only half way, stopped, nothing extreme leaking, saw where it was puffing from and temp had already started to cool, nursed it home with no overheating,

At home, guessing it was a head gasket since it was passenger side, very rear,
looking at it from below that looks like my valve cover leaking?? Am i crazy, I'm already hot and tired and get disoriented looking from the bottom

No smoke from the tail pipe,

7.3 idi



Pictures, leak is just above the yellow tip



Video from below

 

[dgfreeze]

Are you saying it appears the coolant leak is coming from the valve cover? It’s hard to get a good feel for things in a few pics and short video, but you can fairly clearly see the coolant dripping. I would let it cool down, top off the coolant, and use a radiator pressure tester to pressurize the system, at which point you can crawl all over and under the engine without fear of heat or spinning belts/pulleys. Use small mirrors to see around corners, etc. It is possible that coolant is getting into the valve cover, and then leaking out, I guess, but seems more likely it’s a head gasket leaking externally, and just appears to be coming from the valve cover. I grew up driving an old 88 Ford with the 7.3 idi for work. Made hundreds of pickups and deliveries with her. Finally parked her about 8 years ago with just 93,000 miles. Basically no body rust, either. Quite the feat, given we in the rust belt. Brake lines weren’t so lucky. They rusted out, and now she sits. She served us well, but I like my Cummins better.

 

[Scottintexas]

I had thought it was coolant the way it was smoking when it dropped on the exhaust pipe,

Coolant level seemed good, only had to add about 2-3 cups of coolant

I ran it to the store with the radiator cap loose, it still dripped, alot, dipped my finger in it and it had a diesel scent,

Got home, let it idle and drip more, stuck a paper towel under the valve cover when it first drips off the engine, a very diesel color and smell

We had smelled diesel in the cab the last few days and i had assumed i just had leaking oring on the fuel return as it was moist on top of the engine,

So tomorrow I'll take the top side apart and check fuel lines

 

[Babin Farms]

Hopefully it’s just a return line.

 

[dgfreeze]

So is it overheating? If it is, that just means you’ve got two issues…. That being said, if it’s not overheating, this is great news. A fuel injector or return line is much easier than most coolant leaks, especially when overheating is involved.

 

[Scottintexas]

It never overheated, when i noticed the smoke at the light i also noticed the temp gauge was about half way, normally it's only a quarter,

I've changed all the return lines and glow plugs before so I'm very familiar with the top side

 

[Scottintexas]

fixed and back on the road, thanks for all the help,

it was an all day affair, I had to take the glow plug controller off to get better access but you could then clearly see the return line squirting fuel, it was strange as it didn't go into the valley or pool as they had done in the past,

 

[dgfreeze]

Awesome, glad to hear you got her back up and running. So is yours naturally aspirated, or does it have a turbo? We added a turbo to ours to get at least a respectable amount of torque from her.

 

[Scottintexas]

factory ATS turbo