99 7.3 strange no start

[blt93932]

My story starts about 2 months ago, starting became harder and harder, slower and slower, last friday it took a few cycles of the glow plugs, a few slow cranks, more cycles, then it would finally start, when I left work about 5 hours later it took about 2 cycles to get it started. It sat over the weekend, I went to start it monday and notice I had 0 electrical power, batteries were drained.

I bought 2 new batteries, still slow start, noticed starter was burning hot...and then...boom it started! I let it run a few minutes, shut it off, tried to start it again and nothing!

Bought a new starter, man does it crank fast compared to the old one!

But...no start.

Tried one final last resort, sprayed some starting fluid, it would run for a second, just off the fluid itself and that's it.

Also, when trying to start there is no smoke coming out the exhaust.

I have a TS-Chip, I've tried unplugging the chip, to no avail.

What could this be?

[philly2430]

I have been fighting this issue for a long time now. There are many different things that can cause. The most common is the glow plugs or the glow plug relay. You could also be losing fuel prime pressure (vibralocK fittings/seals, bad lift pump, cracked fule pick up line in the tank), bad injector(s) (buzz test), bad high pressure oil side (HPOP and line o-rings), low compression (rings or cylinder sleeves) or it could be the heads (valves, lifters, etc). In my case (after spending much regretted time on) was found to be the valves and valve seats. I would probably start with the glow plug side first. There is a sticky on here with a really good troubleshooting procedure with a multimeter.