Hi,

I just purchased my first Ford today: a 1997 F250 Regular cab Powerstroke. It has 102000 miles on it. It is a 2 wheel drive. I paid $4000 for it... I hope I didn't pay too much. It is dark green in color. It is in fairly good condition overall, some chipping paint that I will take care of soon, immaculate interior, no rust or rot ( I suspect since it is a 2wd nobody really wanted to take it out in the snow) I have a couple questions about it:

1. I have a hard time starting it. It is about 30 degrees here. It hasn't been fueled up since august, so I'm hoping I just need to burn through the 35 gallons of fuel that are in it. Could this cause hard starting?

2. There is no chime or buzzer when you leave your headlights on and attempt to exit the vehicle. Did they all come like this?

3. Does anybody have a list of things that I should check/ change specific to the PSD?

Thanks

 

At 30 degrees you shouldn't have a problem with fuel gelling, but sitting for that long might cause some driveability issues, i would get a bottle of the sliver power service diesel kleen and just dump the whole bottle in the tanks split it 50/50 between the tanks, hard starting overall though can be a number of things, how long does the wait to start light stay on? what position is the battery gauge needle when the wait to start light is on? mine is well below the N in normal when the WTS light is on. when your cranking and its not started is there any smoke coming out the exhaust, white smoke means its getting fuel when cranking, no smoke no fuel.

My truck is a 97 Crew Cab XLT and does not beep or chime or anything when doors or lights are opened or left on, my 94 did and it was annoying as hell so i unhooked it.

 

Wait to start stays on for probably 20 seconds then goes out, but if you try to start it then, it will not. takes 3 or 4 cycles. No smoke. Ill just run through this fuel and see what happens. The battery needle is at maybe the n in normal.

 

Welcome to FTE! Sounds like you've got a solid truck at a great price. BTW, we love picture around here.

Check out the tech/mod stickies at the top of the page and they should provide plenty of reading for you.

Your hard start could be a number of things. Like stated above, get some winter blend fuel treatment in there. Do you have access to an ohm meter?

 

you have either one of two issues then i believe

1. (the most likely because this happened to me) your glow plug relay is not operating correctly or you have 1 or more bad glow plugs, i spent 200 dollars on new plugs and new valve cover gaskets with the built in harness and was still not getting good cold starts, so the only other thing in that system i hadn't replaced at that point was the relay so i went to ford and got a new relay and now i can start on one glow plug cycle at 2 degrees without pluggin in.

2. low compression would be another option for bad cold starts but then you should have quite a bit of smoke out the exhaust at all times a blueish color due to the fact oil could get by the rings

 

If by "cycles", you mean that you're turning the key off and back on, you're wasting your time and prematurely wearing out the glow plug relay. The glow plugs stay on long after the WTS light goes off. Try leaving the key in RUN for an extra 10-20 seconds.

If it was fueled up in August, it has summer blend fuel in it. Put some winter additive in BOTH tanks.

There should be a chime. Look for a loose connector under the dash with six terminals. See if there's a box under there with nothing plugged into it, with a matching connector.

 

my thinking was following the fact that his battery gauge was staying up by the N in normal, when mine was there (bad relay) i too was having a hard time starting in 30 degree weather, new relay, no more cold start problems. starts every time now.

 

At 102K miles it shouldn't be low compression.

 

The volt gauge _should_ read about that low while the glow plugs are on, esp. before starting the engine.

Before you go replacing things, TEST. You can measure the op status of the relay and the glow plugs with a $10 multimeter. Plenty of threads here and on the other forums on the topic. If you don't find the info, post back and we'll repeat.

 

I agree, bad gpr. You can test this by shorting the two big terminals on the gpr and then trying to start.

One thing you should inspect related to your hard starting is the electrical connections at the valve covers. They are notorious for melting and losing contact.

EDIT: The chime is annoying. Be thankful that you don't have to listen to it.

 

yea i know thats why i was defiantly putting my marbles in the bad GPR basket i was just throwing the compression thing out there so he knew more than one potential cause.

 

Welcome to the forum! You will love it on here. I'd probably pick up the GPR anyway as it is something to have in your glovebox. Lots of people on here use the western Snow Plow relay and you can find some threads on here about it. It doesn't cost nearly as much and is a stout relay. Even if it isn't your problem, the $15 or so will come in handy at some point as your's is bound to fail eventually. You should also pick up a CPS at the Ford dealer and have one of those in your glovebox. They fail and leave you stuck, or if you have one, it is a 10 minute change and you are on the road again. Just my .02