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Cold Starting issues

3K views 20 replies 6 participants last post by  sgg93 
#1 ·
Hello,

My truck has been having cold starting difficulties. The glow plug system was shot, so that whole system has been replaced (a month or two ago). That seemed to help the issue for a while, but the problem persists.

When it is quite cold out (32F) the truck simply will not start unless I plug the block heater in for a while. I can cycle the glow plugs a few times, I can crank on it forever, it will not go. It will crank, and fairly consistently I'll get a clack or two, the tach will bounce to about 200 and the cycle repeats.

When it is a bit warmer (40-50F) I can occasionally coax it to start, but when I do it runs poorly (possibly not on all cylinders) for at least five or ten minutes before the engine smooths out. The engine is rough enough at first that it can easily rock the whole truck side to side a few inches. The truck is undriveable for at least ten minutes. If I put it into 1st (manual transmission), it simply stalls unless the engine is revved to 2500rpm and even then the truck can barely move on a 5 degree incline (unless I put it into 4 low).

In the 60s it starts fairly easily, but tends to run on the rough side until it warms up.

If I have had the block heater on it for a few hours or more, it fires up in the first or second crank and runs great.

At this point, I am unwilling to drive it when its under ~45f because I'm not certain it will start again if the block cools sufficiently, leaving me stranded somewhere.

It sounds like I have weak injectors, so I am wondering if they are weak enough where a 5w40 oil swap will make the truck start in cold conditions or if they're already too far gone.

If I am going to rebuild the injectors I'd like to increase their flow capabilities (thinking Rosewood stage1 rebuild). I would prefer not to spring for both a tuner AND the injector rebuilds at the moment, so I'd like to hold off a while.

At the same time, the oil in the truck is brand new and I'm looking at 1/8 the cost of the injectors and a tuner just to switch the oil out, so if it isn't likely to get the truck operational at 20-30F and higher, I'd rather not waste the money.

Any thoughts or experiences by those who've had or seen similar issues would be greatly appreciated!
 
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#2 ·
How many miles on the truck/injectors? When the poppet valves get worn (you can check the clearances between the armatur plate and the injector body ... when they get down around 0.0015" they are worn) it will have trouble cold starting. The starter and batteries are also very important to cold starting. People don't think that their starters are spinning slower until they put a new one on. Cheers!
 
#3 ·
Could be injector issues, but it sounds like you've got a pretty good grasp on that.
A weak HPOP will also give you cold start issues. A worn HPOP will have trouble generating pressure and flow to fire injectors when the oil is viscous.
Wouldn't worry about an oil swap. The temps you're having issues with are too mild for that to make a noticable difference.
 
#5 · (Edited)
A weak HPOP will also give you cold start issues. A worn HPOP will have trouble generating pressure and flow to fire injectors when the oil is viscous.
I assume that a weak HPOP will exacerbate worn injectors, and vice versa? If both are in need of replacement, replacing either one would improve the behavior of the other (at least to some degree) until I can get them both replaced?

Wouldn't worry about an oil swap. The temps you're having issues with are too mild for that to make a noticable difference.
Thanks for the heads up on that one, I'll save my money.
 
#4 ·
The batteries are matched and 6 months old. Starter, starter wiring, glow plug system (all 8 plugs, wiring, relay) were replaced within the last two months.

The truck has 218,000 miles on it. The previous owner dropped a valve in the engine. I replaced it with a running engine that I pulled from a truck that supposedly had 120k on the engine (no way to verify). The truck that I pulled it from I think had 330k on the odometer, so the engine likely doesn't have more than that at the most.
 
#7 ·
I'll definitely look into a T500. As a car person it seems very expensive, but I'm still not used to the pricing on parts for diesels, and in the scheme of HPOPs it seems like a steal. One thing that isn't clear to me about the T500, does it modify a 15* to deliver oil on par with a 17*, or does it exceed the oil delivery of the 17*?

For those of you with trucks that start up properly in colder weather:

If one of your trucks has been sitting out overnight at or a touch below freezing (no block heater plugged in), and you hop into the truck, how long:

* do you wait for the glowplugs before cranking
* do you crank before the oil pressure gauge hops up to normal?
* does it knock without starting before it comes to life?
* do you crank the truck before it actually starts?
 
#8 ·
If one of your trucks has been sitting out overnight at or a touch below freezing (no block heater plugged in), and you hop into the truck, how long:

* do you wait for the glowplugs before cranking
* do you crank before the oil pressure gauge hops up to normal?
* does it knock without starting before it comes to life?
* do you crank the truck before it actually starts?
1 (GP run time) - Usu. an extra 10-15 seconds after the WTS light goes off
2 (oil gauge) - I always forget to look (sorry)
3 (crank time) - Maybe 4 seconds? I'd say about twice as long as if it's plugged in (or a warmer day)
4 - Isn't this the same question?

What all was replaced wrt. the gp system? New wiring / UVCHs? Have you TESTED to see that it all works? When the engine finally starts, does the voltmeter say left-of-center for a minute or two, and then swing right-of-center?

What brand of GPs and relay are you using? If you replaced any wiring/harnesses, what brand?

BTW, you don't "cycle" the glow plugs. They run for up to two minutes when the engine's cold. Just leave the key in RUN an extra 10-15 seconds before turning to START.
 
#10 ·
It sounds like, at this point, I need to verify that my glow plug system works (I think it does), and check the HPOP and injectors.

I've read that for HPOP all I need is an OBDII code reader that can stream live data so I can read the ICP numbers. Is that correct? Would something like this be adequate? Amazon.com: Actron CP9575 Auto Scanner Trilingual OBDII and CAN Scan Tool: Automotive. Are there other brands or models that are preferred or make more sense? I currently do not have any scanners/code readers of any kind. Would something like this also allow me to do a buzz test as well, or am I looking at one of those $300+ scanner devices to do that?
 
#12 ·
I've tried starting it in cold conditions immediately, after the WTS light goes off, 15-30 seconds after the light goes off, after the first time I hear the relay click, and longer periods than that.

Last night I started it up (block heater 45 minutes or so) after letting the glow plugs run a full 2 minute cycle. The voltmeter swung from left to right within about 10 seconds of the truck running. The oil pressure bounced up about 5 seconds after the truck started running.

The AeroForce Scangauge, are you referring to their Interceptor product (http://www.aeroforcetech.com/products_interceptor.html)?
 
#13 ·
Yep, that's the one that will read our trucks.

This is pure speculation, but if you can get your hands on a scanner/reader, one thing you might want to look at is engine oil temp (EOT). It determines (in part) the GP run time, and I just recently read on one of the forums that it also determines engine parameters during startup. So if it's off, esp. if it's reading a higher temp than the actual oil temp on a cold engine, it could be causing what you're experiencing. Again, this is just a speculation, cobbled together from a few different forum post readings.
 
#14 ·
well i tried mini quoting but im an idiot......

to shed some light on your t500 questions since everyone else has your other problem handled. i have the pump in my truck , its not a modded 15* its actually a modded 17* degree they removed the c clip that sheers off and is s probelm with leaking pumps and replaced it with a spiral clip.
as far as flow goes it DOES flow more than a stock 17* it is definately worth the money. only bad part is that if you bought it before the new year from alligator you could have got it for $350. the install took me about 4 hours with nothing more than basic tools. A COMPLETE MORON COULD NOT SCREW THIS UP! hahahahah
 
#15 ·
I went ahead and ordered an AutoEnginuity with the Ford addon. Hopefully I'll get it figured out and get some information next week to figure out what to do next. My suspicion is that I will have a T500 coming my way in the fairly near future :) and hopefully sticks and a tuner thereafter.
 
#16 ·
Sounds like you've got this covered.
As mentioned previously, once you have the AutoEnginuity hooked up take a look at the engine oil temperature reading. When that sensor goes out it can hamper cold starts.
On the other hand, the fact that the truck will start fine after plugged in for a short amount of time tells me its something more than the EOT sensor.
 
#17 ·
Alright, got the AutoEnginuity set up today and went for a run. It's about 55 degrees F here today (~30f overnight), and I had the truck plugged in overnight. It was unplugged for about three hours before I started it up. Started up and ran fine.

Doing a WOT test in 5th gear from ~45-90 the highest ICP number I saw was 2568. It seemed to stabilize around 2450 during that run. At idle it fluctuated between about 570 and 700.

At that time the engine seemed fairly warm, the oil temperature was 88+. I ran it again when the oil temperature was up to 150 and got very similar results.

The more interesting sensor that I was reading was the engine coolant temperature sensor. When I first started the truck it read 215.2 (oil temp 79.7), and slowly climbed to 302 (oil temp 146). It sat at 302 for 2 minutes 45 seconds (while driving) then dropped to 3.2 (not a typo, oil temp 147), and slowly climbed to 143.2 (oil temp 178.7). In total throughout all of this testing, the truck ran for 11 minutes. Do you guys think that this indicates my ECT is bad? Should I be waiting until the ECT and/ Oil temperatures to reach a certain amount before testing?

Tonight is supposed to be ~25f so I'm going to leave the truck unplugged overnight and see what the AutoEnginuity software tells me when I can't get the truck to start.

Thanks again for all the help so far!
 
#19 ·
Yesterday morning I went out to crank the truck. I let the glow plugs run for their full time, and started cranking. Cranked it for about 25 seconds. Lots of smoke, oil temp sensor said it was 55 degrees (overnight was below 30). ICP worked its way up to 3000+. No start. Not even knocking, just spinning and smoking.

Turned the key off. Waited 30 seconds, turned the key on, cranked it when the WTS light went off and it started on the first or second crank. It's never done that before. Idled great, too. I turned the truck off thinking maybe it was a fluke. Last night I tried again (35 degrees all day) and again it fired right up. To my knowledge nothing has changed. I'm going to start leaving the block heater unplugged and trying to start it regularly with the AutoEnginuity attached and recording to see if I can find any kind of pattern or anything different going on.

If the EOT was reading ~55 degrees and the oil temperature was actually, say, 32 degrees, would that be different enough to cause problems? Since the truck had been running the day before and I had it parked in my barn (no heat/insulation, just wind protection) perhaps it didn't cool all the way down to outside temperatures overnight.

That wouldn't really explain why it wouldn't start for 20+ seconds of cranking but round two fire up instantly, though.
 
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