My dad recently bought a 2003 F-350 with the (I want to say...) 6.0L PowerStroke V8. It was in a mild accident that was concentrated to the front passenger fender and tire but other than that there's no damage elsewhere. Upon turning the "key", the dash goes crazy. I put emphasis on the key because the previous owner ended up bypassing the anti-theft immobilizer completely and literally all that's needed is to put any key or screwdriver in it and turn. There's no auxillary power to the cigarette lighters, no power to radio, none of the gauges read like they should, the airbag light / ABS light / seat belt light / assuming the low fuel light (gas tank with 3 liquid drops) all flicker to the rhythm of a malfunctioning relay that seems to be right behind the fuse box under the dash. I did a little bit of reading up and saw that occasionally fuse #22 would blow due to the fuel bowl heater shorting out or something like that. I pulled it and checked continuity, it was fine. Without replacing it yet, I turned the key and there was no clicking. Radio came on, dash lit up like it should've, and all the gauges were reading close to or exactly what it should've read. Tried turning the key then and there wasn't even a click. As soon as I replaced said fuse, it went back to it's normal state. Also note that when I had the fuse out, I tried to hook up an OBDII scanner to it and look for codes but the scanner wasn't receiving any power with or without the fuse. I am new to the diesel platform and have little idea what is where, but if anyone can help me I would be greatly appreciative.

 

First thing - check fuse #12. Then we can go from there when you know it is good.

Next, what scan tool are you trying to use? If you don't have it already, downloading ForScan Lite to a smartphone is $5 and then another $35 for an OBDII adapter will get you a scan tool that is a very good/thorough code reader. The adapter (I like the BAFX brand) you need depends on your phone (iOs vs Android).

The fuel bowl heater shorting out is a 7.3L thing.

 

Makes sense, I didn't know whether or not it was a 7.3L or a 6.0L until I looked at the tuner that was hidden in the truck. As for my OBD scanner, I didn't have my Craftsman OBDII scanner handy so I used the next best thing I had, a Micro Mechanic Bluetooth OBD scanner that I knew worked. I will check fuse #12 when I get a chance to. If it isn't bad, could the bad OBD port be a symptom of a fault in the wiring somewhere or is that all computer controlled?

 

Could be wiring/electrical or it could be a bad PCM.