1996 Ford F350 Restarting engine after air gets in a DIESEL

You need to stay far away from the person who told you to put trans fluid in the water/separator. BAD IDEA! Try checking the filter housing for diesel fuel. If there is fuel, just keep cranking. It can take up to 10 minutes of cranking to purge all the air. The bad part is that the injectors are lubrricated in part by the diesel fuel. If you ran them dry, they can become damaged during the excessive cranking. Check the fuel filter housing for fuel and post back. We'll have to go from there.

Use WD-40 to run it on. It is like quick start for diesels

Don't crank continuously, it's bad for the starter. Crank about 30 seconds and then wait a minute. Then do it again. Also, WD-40 may be good for starting diesels, but not the 7.3 DI. If it starts and there is no proper lubrication inside the injectors, they will burn out. They are tempermental anyway and are not like other injectors. They are also expensive to replace--several hundred dollars each. Then you have to bleed the high pressure oil system down in order to remove the injectors. If they burn out, the overall cost to replace them all is about the same price as a used economy car. Just keep cranking and let the fuel system purge itself, it may do some damage, but not as much as using a supplimental starting method.

As far as rep points, under the name, you will see "give feedback." Click on this to give rep points. Thanks for your donation also and for choosing our website. We're glad to help.

Ill give him point courtesy of you.

And as I posted earlier, on a 7.3, any supplimental starting method (such as starter fluid), if the injectors are dry, will burn them out. The injectors (last I replaced them) were $450 each. Since it's a v8 that's a lot of gamble for a $3 can of starter fluid and a lot of impatience. I've done my fair share of replacing injectors on the 7.3 and 6.0 and they aren't cheap. Don't take the risk of a $5000 repair.