So the other night I drive home, truck is running just fine park it and go inside. Walk out the next morning and she won't turn over, no starter sounds nothing. Just a clinking noise when I turn the key, and a repeat one when I disengage it. Batteries have power, all the electronics work. So I pulled my starter and got it looked at. It wasn't broken but had a mess of scoring and was on the way out. They gave me a deal on a rebuilt Mitsubishi as apposed to my cheap Chinese one, I took it. Grabbed a starter solenoid swapped that as well.
Alternator is less than a year old, batteries still have a charge, cables are still all intact. Just a clinking noise of at best guess the starter trying to spin and being stopped. Don't quote me on that. Ideas would be great as my truck isn't going anywhere at the moment.

 

If the problem is electric, you will hear a click

If the engine simply won't turn, you will hear a thud, with a deeper mechanical sound to it.

And if that's the case, my first guess would be hydro-lock. Pull the glow plugs and see if she cranks.

-Matt

 

did u check the volts awile u where cranking the motor batterys might be toast

 

Hydro lock seems unlikely as it wasn't raining that night, unless I'm misunderstanding what it refers to.

It does not crank, and being must myself I can't see what the voltage is when I turn the key.

 

if u motor cavtataed it can hyrdolock

 

Not trying to bag on your spelling, but did you mean it suffers from cavitation? Like the 7.3's can.be?

 

yea that could be ur problem pull a glow pull and check

 

What will I see or not see if this is correct?
I have never touched his glow plugs in the nearing 3 years of ownership so new to me, I have not needed to with her.

 

test and see if you have voltage at the s terminal on the starter while someone has the key turned to the start position. if you have voltage there and at the b terminal from the battery then the starter should be working and the engine is probably hydrolocked if there is no power there then your not getting power from the igniton side of the system and youll have to start some tracing.

 

I have 10-11V at the starter when key is turned. Onto fiddling with glow plugs.

 

Okay got one glow plug out, my issue is the wires attached to the plugs. They seem to want to not come apart, and I don't want to destroy them. Is there a trick?

Edit: k with some wiggling and a lot of disintegrating of what was either rubber or plastic stoppers I have all but 2 off and all the glow plugs are turning by socket without pb.
What is the step after pulling them?

 

Not trying to be a pain in the ***, but I'm kinda in my engine bay wondering what I do next.

 

could be the ignition switch down on the steering column.

i have never experienced h-lock with any engine but i doubt that is what happened since the engine wont even think of turning over.

that voltage reading is no good. IF your batteries are good then they should each be at 12.6V. it is essentially a straight shot between the bats and the starter. with out even having the starter crank the engine over you are getting a 1-2 volt drop. that is INCREDIBLY UNACCEPTABLE. no matter what the circuit is on a car it should not have any more .2v of voltage drop IIRC.

So.... things that could be wrong
-your bats are no good. (get them load tested)
-you have a dirty/bad ground connection. (the PO of my truck never cleaned the battery posts. he would say how the truck would start just fine sometimes but, then he would go to the store, shut if off, goo shopping, come back out and it would not even turn over. clean the bat posts and did not have an issue after that.
-the positive cable on the bats could be severely corroded.

also just b/c a battery has 12.6V with no load on it does not mean it is any good. the old bat in my dads car always showed 12.6V. i took it to school to load test it and it sank below 8V as soon as a put a load on it. FYI, when load testing a bat the voltage should not drop below 9V after 10 sec of load application. that 9V will be good for summer but be QUESTIONABLE during the cold months.

 

if you have the plugs out then try to turn it over, if it is hydro-locked it will let the fluid out the gp hole, if it still does not turn over then it is not hydro-locked

if you have only 10v at the starter that seems low, these trucks pull alot of current to start, you can also jump across the terminals on the starter solenoid to see if it will crank

 

I said screw it for the night, sun is going down im just getting pissed with it. As it sits all glow plugs are about 1/2 out, didn't want to yank them completely before I could clean in there a bit better ie air. I pulled the batteries to top them up (it won't put them higher than 12v, never has truck always starts at min 11V usually). Once truck has run for an hour or so they equalize at like 13-14V.

I recent replaced the steering column like 2-3 months ago with a wrecker find, so it could be good or bad. What am I looking for in there?