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Another 04 6.0L no start problem
New to the site and hate my first post is to be another no start problem. Nevertheless here we go. The truck is a 2004 6L. I have replaced the original batteries with Optima cells and had no problem up to this point.
The truck started this problem back in October. It seems that the cold weather set it off. All three time it has happened it has been a very cold day or night well below freezing. The symptoms are that when you go to start the truck everything seems normal, except for the glow plug seems to stay illuminated quite a bit longer than normal. When you finally attempt to crank the engine, nothing happens. No clicking, no chattering, and no engine cranking.
The first time this happened we had ADAC (Germany Automobile service) come and he felt the driver side battery was the problem. I replaced that battery that day and had no additional problems for several weeks. On the next real cold night, the truck would not start the next morning. Again we called ADAC and this time we attempted to jump the truck with the same results. As part of the trouble shooting the ADAC guy pulled the starter relay, and jumped across the terminals. The engine cranked in this conditon with the relay shorted the starter fully engaged, but the truck would not start. I think the fact that the relay was out is what kept it from starting. But it cranked over very strongly, indicating that the batteries were good. We decided to tow the truck to the dealer. But when the tow truck finally arrived, the temperature had warmed up slightly above freezing so I attempted another start. This time the truck started normally.
I took the truck directly to the Ford dealer and he had it for over a month. He told me that he found no code that indicated any problem. He told me that he did look at the trucks computer program and that he felt he needed to re-flash a particular program into the computer. He told me that the truck had started normally every since. I reluctantly took the truck.
Just before Christmas when the weather got below freezing again, the truck started to act up again. I decided to take it home and give it back to the Ford dealer. I fueled the truck for the trip home, and immediately after fueling the truck seemed to stall and the water in the fuel light blinked on and off one time. It was only on for a second or so and I have not seem it again.
The engine then ran normally till I parked it. When I went to start it about ten minutes later it wouldn’t start. (Same Symptoms)
I decided that the flashing of the water in the fuel light may be my problem. So I drained the water separator to see if my problem was Ice. But the drained fuel had no water in it at all. I also read that I might be able to re-boot the computer by disconnecting the batteries for at least 20 minutes. I remover both terminals from both batteries for 3 days. I reconnected the batteries and attempted to start again. But the same problem exist to this day.
I have decided that the problem must be electrical. I will attempt to charge both batteries and then try again. After reading several post on this site, I think that the Alternator may be the culprit, Any other ideas. I really need to get her running again.....
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