What the heck!

[BrotherNick]

Well, im stumped and quite frankly im mad. Bought the truck for $1100 then came a new radiator, filters, and all that fun stuff, and finally a new battery. But nothing is working! The battery helped and its cranking like a **** now but it still wont start! I knew this truck needed love but i didnt know how much love it needed and im running out of time and funds. What could i be missing? What did i forget? Seriously i love this truck and i want it to shake the earth beneath it but it cant do that if it doesnt run. Help me out please!

Regards.
A very pissed off Nick

 

[aofarrell2]

First thing to check: Fuel shut off solenoid. If it failed it won't get fuel and it'll crank good but won't start.

 

[BrotherNick]

That honestly is the first thing i checked. Ive read about priming the system but what i read was very vague and didnt really answer the question. Also, after a bit of cranking i push the shraeder valve and a bit of air comes out. Thanks!

 

[Ruger_556]

That honestly is the first thing i checked. Ive read about priming the system but what i read was very vague and didnt really answer the question. Also, after a bit of cranking i push the shraeder valve and a bit of air comes out. Thanks!

Does it smoke when it's cranking? If you keep getting air at the shraeder valve could be a bad lift pump (Electric solves many problems)

 

[aofarrell2]

^ Lift pump was my second thought.

 

[icanfixall]

Well lets see. You posted you replaced the battery.. Does this mean you replaced both batteries. Now standing in front of the truck hood open key on remove the large wire off the front of the injection pump top cover. Listen and feel for a click sound and feel. This is the fuel shutoff solenoid working if it clicks. Reconnect the wire. Now crank the engine by the fender mounted solenoid found on the passenger side fender well. Remove the small single wire and jump across to the lug with all the wires connected to it. Thats the hot side. The engine should crank. As its cranking press the bleeder valve on the fuel filter head. See if air or fuel comes out. If fuel comes out then crank with the throttle wide open. Stop after cranking abour 15 seconds to col down the starter. Now crack open some of the injecter lines at the injecters with a 5/8 inch wrench. Look and listen for air or fuel escaping. Yes, you can hear the hiss of compressed air escaping because its building pressures of up to 1800 lbs. Crank again and crack the smae nuts loose. It will start when you get nothing but fuel leaking out of the lines at the injecters. Hope this helps. Be sure to let the starter rest about 2 minutes so it cools down or you will be replacing the starter. Long cranks will ruin the starter fast. Also cranking at low speeds because the batteires are running down kills starters too so please keep a charger on them when cranking to purge air out of the fuel system. When cranking if you see white smoke from the tail pipe you probably have no working glow plugs. then find the reason and fix it. Or disable them and use a very tiny shot of starting fluid. This is done but not recommended by many here. Its an explosive device in a can that can do horrible things to any engine. A less than one second blast is all that needed. Its that powerful in our high compression engines. Bend rods and broken pistons are a possibility is misused. Never ever wet the intake with either. Some have founf either works very well to inflate tires to the bead. Its dangerous to use it that way but again. If you know how to use it you will be fine... Ever watch monster trucks blow a tire off the beads. Well they have a guy spraying about half a can in the top of the tire. Then everyone but the guy with the Bic liter stands back while he lites it off. Big puff of smoke and the tire is remounted to both inside and outside beads. Then you start adding air. I think they call the guy with the liter a Darwin Award Winner...

 

[BrotherNick]

No. No smoke when cranking. but the filter is getting fuel, il turn the drain and it will start coming out.

 

[Ruger_556]

No. No smoke when cranking. but the filter is getting fuel, il turn the drain and it will start coming out.

Hold the bleeder while you're cranking. Should be a pretty steady flow if the lift pump is okay. The drain on the bottom really doesn't mean anything. Otherwise crack an injector loose and see if you're getting fuel up there.

 

[BrotherNick]

Icanfixall, I will deffinitly try this. I did before but didnt do it long enough i guess. And yes, only one battery was replaced

 

[Agnem]

Verify you have fuel coming out of the return fitting on the top of the pump when your cranking it. If so, then the primary pump in the IP is working and you have fuel. If not, then check upstream.

 

[BrotherNick]

When i open up the housing to look at the FSS its full of fuel. Could there be a clog somewhere? When i crank it i can deffinitly smell fuel. But heres the catch. I may not have gotten all of the 4 year old Veggie oil out of the lines. I did the best i could. could it be that the fuel just wont burn?

 

[idiabuse]

I may of missed another poster giving advice, But any old IDI needs to have all 8 injectors cracked open before cranking.
When all 8 injectors are wet with fuel you tighten them up and it will start.

Anything else and you get mad when it don't start.


Javier

 

[icanfixall]

When i open up the housing to look at the FSS its full of fuel. Could there be a clog somewhere? When i crank it i can deffinitly smell fuel. But heres the catch. I may not have gotten all of the 4 year old Veggie oil out of the lines. I did the best i could. could it be that the fuel just wont burn?

Sorry to tell you thise but you should not have opened the top of the injection pump. there is a special way it goes back together. If you did it wrong the engine may fire up and run well past the governer. thats called a diesel runaway and short of putting it in top gear if its a standard trans or shutting off the air supply to the engine you will never get it to shut down. So please... Do this before you try starting again. Remove the air cleaner filter can. Have a piece of wood at least 1/2 inch thick to cover the intake opening to chock off the sir to the engine. Only other thing you might do to stop a runaway is cut off the fuel sully but then it runs till its out of the fuel in the filter.. Takes a long time too. If you have a turbo be careful around the inlet air suction. It can suck in your complete hand. Its spinning way about 120,000 rpm too so its eats off fingers fast. Now you tell us it "MAY" havse some vegi fuel still in the lines.. Well how long has it sat like that. Might need a differant pump now because if the fuel ruining it internally. As posted, opening the filter drain tells you nothing. Its the top bleeder valve called a schrader valve thats important to see fuel squirting out of. Thats the inner tube looking fitting on the filter head. Why did you change one battery. What shape is the other battery in. What happens when you change one battery is the old battery pulls down the voltage to meet the old battery. Very same princible as two containers full of water and a line joining both of them togehter on the bottom. If the level gets down in one of them gravity pulls fluid from the other fuller container. Same thing happens in a new and old battery like our systems. The old one pulls down the new one to its charge level.

 

[BrotherNick]

Crap. I had a good friend who owns an IDI take the top off and now it seems im screwed. What is the certain way that it is put back on? Not just a simple put on and tighten down? Im about to throw in the towel and send it to a shop. I don't want to go and do something I will regret later on. As for the other battery, its not as old as the one I replaced and it seems to have good charge. So I guess this is where im at a cross roads. Do I either do this myself and risk breaking things? Or send it to a professional shop and have them do it right. Im kind of new to this so I think il go with the shop.

 

[redneckaggie]

i think one would really have to try hard to get the top of the ip on wrong, I believe the method i used was to put the fss tab inside of the gov assy and drop straight down, then I had to push backwards slightly to get it to line up. I know that I pulled the top of the ip before I ever knew about the runaway issues and just reasoned it out after it would not just slide back on.

As far as the cranking issues go. I would make sure that there is no air at the schrader, then I would check to make sure there is fuel out of the top fitting of the ip, then start cracking injectors and make sure there is fuel to them. while verifying all of this I would plug the block heater in to rule out glow plugs issues preventing a start and then let her rip.