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Really really hard start

Michaeljp86

Michaeljp86

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I went to fire up the 6.5 2days ago and it didn't want to start, it was puffing smoke so I'm sure it was getting fuel. Ive been having cold start problems for a while but not this bad. I put 2 new batteries in and was putting them to use. The temp was 40ish, so it wasn't super cold. When I parked it I pulled it close to the building and yesterday I plugged in the block heater for about a hour and it cranked right up.

The glow plug light goes on and off like normal but my best guess is there inst any glow plugs running at all. It runs perfect and starts great when the engine is warm.

If the glow plug relay goes bad will the glow plug light still work like normal?

Anyone have any thoughts on this? The weather is getting cold and nasty so Id appreciate any knowledge instead of me starting from square one in the blizzard.
 
check for voltage at the gp's when the key is first turned on if you have power, then you need to check ohms to the block at each GP spade with the wire unplugged. should have around .6 ohms each GP
 
Get your starter checked I had the same problem about a week ago and once I put the new one in it had no problem starting
 
You need 100 RPM min cold when cranking. If you have new self regulating glow plugs you may need more glow time as no one replaced the controllers that were designed for low voltage quick heat plugs.
 
Michaeljp86 said:
If the glow plug relay goes bad will the glow plug light still work like normal?
Click to expand...

Yes.... on mine, with the headlights on, you could see them dim slightly (and see it on the voltage gauge in the cluster)
when the relay cycled. When it went bad, wait to start light still worked, but no dimming of headlights.
 
Tookie said:
Yes.... on mine, with the headlights on, you could see them dim slightly (and see it on the voltage gauge in the cluster)
when the relay cycled. When it went bad, wait to start light still worked, but no dimming of headlights.
Click to expand...

Now that you mentioned that I don't remember that click when the relay releases. Ill have to play with it today.
 
Im getting power to the glow plugs but all the glowplugs on the driver side seem to be open, no resistance on any of them. I didn't check the passenger side. The headlights don't really dim when I tun the key.
 
Tookie said:
You can jump the solenoid to see if they will power up.... but there is a lot
of current there, be careful if you do.
Click to expand...

I turned the key and checked for power, I had it at the one glow plug so I figured they all did. When I checked for ohms all the plugs on the driver side were wide open.
 
I had a similar problem multiple times and almost replaced my starter but then my truck started cutting out. I swapped my fuel filter and the hard start went away.
 
I ended up with a battery that had a bad cell or 2. Both Batts are less than 2 yrs old so I didn't expect a problem. Both Batts showed 14.5 volts on the charger and the charger had the full charge light on but one wouldn't pass my load tester.

Worth checking but not saying it's for sure your problem.
 
tanman_2006 said:
I ended up with a battery that had a bad cell or 2. Both Batts are less than 2 yrs old so I didn't expect a problem. Both Batts showed 14.5 volts on the charger and the charger had the full charge light on but one wouldn't pass my load tester.

Worth checking but not saying it's for sure your problem.
Click to expand...

Since I'm pretty sure I have at least 4 junk glow plugs I'm going to start there. They should be here in a day or two. Another reason I don't think its a problem of it turning over to slow is when it didn't want to start I did a lot of cranking on it and you could hear the engine slowing down as the batteries drained and it fired up.

Even if its not the glow plugs they should have been changed years ago so it not a wasted effort.

My IH 484 has a crappy battery and has the cranking RPM problem. It gets about 5 rotations and if it doesnt start you either have to let it sit a while or get a charger out. When you do put a charger on it then it jumps to life and you can hear the engine cranking over a lot faster.
 
I got them all changed, I had to pull the down pipe off.

It wasn't real cold out, maybe 25F and it fired right up.

I checked the old glow plugs, there was 3 that were still good. They were the front 3 on the passenger side.

The old GP were AC delco, they all came very easy, I did pray for that.

I guess we'll see how these bosch plugs hold up.
 
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