Weird Starting?

[sootman73]

ya if there is smoke coming out of it then you are getting fuel. look into how fast it cranks over.

as i can't remember does anyone know what the tach should read when its cranking?

 

[funnyman06]

I guess one would have to have a tach to really know that answer.

 

[towcat]

ya if there is smoke coming out of it then you are getting fuel. look into how fast it cranks over.

as i can't remember does anyone know what the tach should read when its cranking?

300rpm should be minimum cranking speed.

 

[geonc]

300rpm should be minimum cranking speed.

That's a decent target and a true starter draw test is done done by first making sure both batteries are fully charged and ALL connections -including "both" block grounds- are clean and tight!
check each battery individually -one negitive cable disconnected-
They both should pass a 15 second load test of half the rated cold cranking amps and the voltage drop no should be not lower than about 10 volts...anything less is doing more damage than work....

The starter load or draw should be no higher than 500amps drawing from both batteries...

Just FYI...most decent running IDI's will usually fire over as soon as you hit the key....any more usually indicates poor fuel delivery-air/leakdown or in your possible case, heavy starter draw....

Unlike a gas eng that if the spark fires it will run, a diesel needs the cranking speed to compress the fuel vapors to the point of combustion......

Save yourself the headache and find a good electric shop to do a starting system test....forget the IP and GP's for now....

just my couple pennies...hope it is of some help

 

[greythorn3]

From what ive read it could be the starter is not spinning fast enough, i know you need more RPMs when the engine is hot to start it up. So maybe the starter is getting tired?

as long as you got fuel and your glow plugs are good and compression is good it will start up even with a slow starter speed, mine does it at very low starter speed.

 

[RLDSL]

as long as you got fuel and your glow plugs are good and compression is good it will start up even with a slow starter speed, mine does it at very low starter speed.

There's a break point between very low and too low starter speed. Once it drops below a certain point the pressure rise in the cylinder doesn't happen fast enough to create the friction in the air molecules needed to light off the fuel.

Kind of like a bar fight, everyone rushes in and gets hot and blows, but if they walk in quiet like, nothing happens

 

[greythorn3]

haha im charging my camcorder up to show you how slow mine will start.. its almost to the point it wont turn over then vroom!! might not get slow enough though since we are in the 30's again.. when it was 10's or so with teh bad batterys and hadent been run in a month or so it would barley turn over but still start..

Ray

 

[greythorn3]

ok folks heres the video, unfortunitly its to dang warm out for my slow start! but it starts normal anyhow.. might have to wait tell next winter for the cold start again! its 35 today so that ruined it, but if its under say 10 or 20 it will slow start..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUxlpPMq1l8

Ray

i think im the slowest thing in the video.

 

[Diesel JD]

You probably only have one or two dead glows, unless somebody cheaped out and used autolites or champs. I'd just replace the bad ones if they're motorcraft/beru, delphi or anything else good. Check at all your Ocala autozones and see if they have any ZD9s left. I got 13 of them for $13.00 here in Gainesville in Feb. Last in the 13th street store.

 

[Cat_Rebel]

On the turboed trucks alot of people just don't replace the 2 under the turbo because they are such a pain to get at.

 

[Diesel JD]

True story! I had the one in #7 under the snail shell die on mine. It took taking off a return line, a swivel socket and a box wrench to come out. You would know that the only glow plug to die on me since the solid state conversion would happen AFTER I turbo'd the truck and be under it.

 

[Cat_Rebel]

True story! I had the one in #7 under the snail shell die on mine. It took taking off a return line, a swivel socket and a box wrench to come out. You would know that the only glow plug to die on me since the solid state conversion would happen AFTER I turbo'd the truck and be under it.

Hey good info, didn't think of taking off the return line when I had to do some on a turboed truck. I'll remember that though. I know what you mean, still not a easy task to get those back two out.

 

[FordGuy100]

I really ought to have replaced the glow plugs before I installed the turbo, , oh well.

 

[sootman73]

number 7 wasn't too bad to get out for me. i used a ujoint socket extension wrapped in electrical tape to get that. the crappy part was that there was a bunch of dirt that fell into the hole since those little pockets were full of random **** like leaves and pine needles had no vaccumm to clean it out either. had my friend use a mcdonalds straw to manually suck all the pieces out of the way

(never replaced number 8 as i didn't wanna remove the turbo to do so. didn't have enough time to do that!

 

[Shadetreemechanic]

Number 8 will come out without removing the turbo. I used a deep well 1/4 inch socket with extension and u-joint. To get all the crap out I took a 3/8 gas line and duct taped it in a hole in the bottom of a yogurt container. Then I put the container over the end of my shopvac hose. It makes a nice mini-vac to clean out around the glowplugs. Best done BEFORE you remove the glowplug.