Is my starter bad or is it something else?

[DaleInTN]

Hi guys, it's me again. I went out to start my truck just now and it starts to turn over but stops. I'm having a hard time explaining it. It's like everything is fine then something stops the motor from turning over. Any ideas?

BTW, the starter has made a clicking noise from time to time since I bought it in July.

 

[chillman88]

How fast or slowly is it turning over? Does it spin fast and then stop or is it barely turning?

 

[DaleInTN]

It starts to turn over like normal, but very quickly just stops.

I asked for help in another place and they are saying hydro lock. Someone says the cowl/hood seal could be bad allowing water on/in the engine. This makes sense because I parked my truck in a different place (motor is downhill instead of uphill) and it rained the past 24 hours.

I'm about to go unplug the IP and remove all the glow plugs and try that.

Any other ideas?

 

[DrCharles]

First thing to do is check all your battery cables and connections. Then I recommend measuring the voltage at the starter while cranking. One probe on the hot post, the other on the starter body. If it's low then start looking for the voltage drop... if it's not low then replace the starter.

 

[Macrobb]

Are you using any coolant? I ran into an IDI with a failing headgasket that did his a few times. No water in the oil, but it'd use a good 3 quarts of coolant in 100 miles. Finally, at the end, I went to start it amd it just cranked over a partial turn, stopped solid... waited 5 seconds, tried again and it got past that spot and fired up. Oh, and the exhaust smelled like coolant, another dead givaway.

 

[DaleInTN]

I'll check the radiator but I don't think it's loosing any coolant

 

[icanfixall]

Best idea is pull the glowplugs and crank the engine. Just be careful because the possible or probable fluid in the cylinder will be squirting out of the glowplug holes with lots of force.Our engines run around 500 lbs of cranking compression. Removing the air filter can will tell you right away if rain water got into the intake too.

 

[DaleInTN]

I was going to remove the air filter to get to the glow plugs a little easier. I'll leave it off when purging the engine

 

[Thewespaul]

As said before don’t crank it over, remove glowplugs before risking more damage to your engine.

 

[Macrobb]

As said before don’t crank it over, remove glowplugs before risking more damage to your engine.

As long as the engine doesn't try to fire(unplug FSS to be sure), the starter doesn't have enough power to break anything.

 

[Thewespaul]

That’s correct, you bend a rod once it starts and catches on the hydro lock cylinder

 

[DaleInTN]

Update

I unplugged the IP and removed all glow plugs. I had someone turn it over so I could see what came out. Thankfully it was water, quite a bit of water. Anyway, bumping it over a few times blew out the water. I put some anti-seize on the glow plugs and reinstalled them. I cranked the motor to make sure it was turning freely before connecting the wires back to the IP. She fired up, ran pretty rough for about 20 seconds then smoothed out. I just got back from about a 5 mile test drive...she running fine.

I WILL BE BUYING A COWL/HOOD SEAL VERY SOON! It's shot and what is there is brittle

Thanks again for the help/suggestions

 

[DaleInTN]

Can someone tell me if this coolant would be ok for my idi? This is what I run in my Freightliner.

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[DrCharles]

That's amazing to me that enough water can get in through that indirect route to hydrolock...

I also recommend you replace the rubber washer on the air cleaner hold-down bolt. Even if water gets in from a leaky cowl seal, it can't run inside your engine unless the air cleaner lid is leaking too.

 

[icanfixall]

Can't help with the coolant you asked bout. An easy way to avoid this water inters again is wrap a heavy duty plastic bag around the air filter housing. Just tuck is in under the edges but do not try to seal it by the intake manifold where the housing meets it. It wont blow off by the radiator fan either. Glad you found the problem and easily fixed it.
To the member that wonders how " that much water" can cause the engine to hydrolock. Well easy answer. The heads are flat. The pistons miss hitting the heads by about 40 thousands. No fluid clearance in that area.