Okay. I'll try to make this a short story. 97 super duty. 7.3. Truck ran fine. Parked for a couple weeks. For some reason, little pissants took up residence in the truck. A buddy had a problem with his truck. Thought it was one of his relays. So he borrowed one from my truck. When he pulled it out. He noticed mine had a small crack and hope in the cover and the ants were in the breaker. Later he tried cranking the truck and it wouldn't start. Replaced that breaker. When trying to crank , the solenoid would click. Replaced the injector solenoid. Still wouldn't crank. Now the Wait To start light on the dash flashes. When the truck cranks now , at idle , the engine will die every time the the light comes on which is about every other second, then kick back on when the light goes off, every other second .
Hope this makes sense , any suggestions on what my problem may be. Was thinking of buying a reman PCM for $ 125 from advance , but don't wont to start replacing parts for no reason. Also , the truck is only showing about 168,000 on the odometer. Thanks for any help.

 

Nobody has any ideas ???

 

The obvious is chewed up wires but being a holiday weekend its pretty dead around here. Hopefully someone will come along.

 

Well thanks for offering any help. We checked continuity on pin number 101 at the pcm . from the pcm to the glow plug solenoid and all seemed fine . I've been looking to buy a pcm , can't find one , but can send mine off to get it refurbished . So , this looks like my next option, unless somebody has any suggestions . Was hoping to find someone to swap pcm's with just to check , but I don't know of anyone .

 

Where are you located?

 

More likely a main power intermittent issue. The WTS light coming on is akin to someone turning the key off and back on briefly. Re-check all wires and connections at the PCM power relay, and at the fuses that energize the PCM. If the engine is running at all, the PCM is probably NOT the culprit, and I would NOT send it for refurb or turn it in on a reman without testing with another PCM FIRST. Check eBay, car-part.com, classifieds here and on the other truck sites for a compatible PCM. If it's a manual truck, even an automatic PCM will work as a test unit; idle will romp and it might throw some codes, but it will run the engine.

 

Ok thanks , my buddy has an automatic , mine is a manual .but his is a california version truck , will that matter ? The truck will fire up and run , but will die everytime the light comes on , then fire up when the light goes out . We can get the truck running , and when we pull 1 of the small wires from the glow plug soleniod and cross to the other small wire of the solenoid , the truck will run fine , at idle anyway , haven't tried driving it like that . I am in NC.

 

Sounds all to familiar, mine happened to be the idm relay going bad. Sorry can't remember if it was the pcm, idm or ?? Relay

 

We think this whole problem started when little **** ants got all in the truck , and bed up in a cracked relay . One of the 4 relays in a box on the fenderwell . I will try to check all of these again this weekend . Its just kind of weird , the truck was fine till these **** ants got in there . Its a dump body truck so its not used a whole lot , but has never given any problems before . Thanks for all the help from all of you , please feel free to throw any ideas you have at me , I will hang onto the PCM until i check some of these things out . Thanks again .