i left my lights on over night now both batteries are dead. by the time the glow plugs cycle the bettery is dead and won't turn the engine over. what do i do???

 

You jump it like you would jump most any vehicle, It takes GOOD QUALITY jumper cables though.

Pos to Pos, Neg to Neg, It's best to do it on the passenger side battery.

El-cheapo cables will likely not get it done.

-Enjoy
fh : )_~

 

I always put positive to positive and the negative of the jumper truck to a ground (not the battery).

It's best not to spark near the battery since they emit hydrogen gas. That's why I pick a ground other than the battery. Just a thought.

 

I agree, the last connection should be negative to ground, not battery, that should have been included, my bad...

Though I must admit I've done it battery to battery many thousands of times and (fortunately) have never had one blow up... That doesn't make it right!

-Enjoy
fh : )_~

 

i have jumped mine off my girlfriends toyota.it wasnt easy on her car but it worked.you might use a gas soaked rag over the intake though to make it fire faster.i used a small burst of ether.(very small!!)

 

If you're gonna start it on ether, make sure you have the glow plugs shut off, this is doable by removing the white wire from the top of the glowplugs relay behind and under your air cleaner box - without that wire the glowplugs controller cannot ground the relay's control circuit, and therefore the glowplugs will not get any power.

As for the actual jumping, whenever I was jumping my buddy's truck (old batteries, bad glow plugs, etc) I'd always use two sets of cables and connect battery to battery, then hit the high-idle so my alternator ramps up the power output to somewhat boost the batteries - worked like a charm every single time, till eventually he got big commercial batteries and new glow plugs and he no longer needs my services in that department Ideally, the safe way would be hooking the negative cables from both of my batteries to somewhere on his engine, and not his batteries, but then again every time I try that way the jumped vehicle refuses to start, so by now I just do it first and honestly expect it to not work at all - don't help most new vehicles have all their engine stuff covered in plastic, good luck finding a good engine ground on those...

 

The thing here is once you hook the cables up, let the running vehicle charge the batteries a couple minutes before you even try to start the diesel.

With cheapy cables, you may have to let it charge for 15 minutes or more before you try.

That little alternator and little battery in a car take a bit to charge 1700 CCA worth of batteries and then cycle glow plugs drawing 200 amps and a 300 amp starter.

Notice glow plugs and starter add up to more than most car batteries have as cranking amps.

 

If your truck is a Standard you can just pull it to start it.

 

Anytime I have to jump my 88 off I get two buddies to jump me. I always carry two really good sets of jumpers, and even then I let them charge my truck for a good 5 minutes before tryin to bust her off.

 

I've been actually meaning to hard-wire some jumper terminals to both my batteries, ya know, how tow trucks have it - then all I need to do to give or receive a jump would be plug the cables in and clip them on the other vehicle.

 

I put quick jump connectors on my service truck and wound up not liking it.

For two reasons

1. It made the cables useless unless plugged into your truck!
2. There was some amperage loss in the connectors.

I wound up making a short set with the female end and clamps so I had a regular set of cables.

In the towing world I see how it could be an advantage.

-Enjoy
fh : )_~

 

Well I was thinking of putting the jump connectors on only one side, the one that goes in my truck - after all, I will be using them to jump my own truck from someone else's, or someone else's vehicle from my truck, either way one end is always connected to my truck, so it will work out fine. Also, even tho there is amperage drop across the connectors, is that any worse than the the drop across the alligator clamps on the battery terminals?

 

I guess I didn't explain well enough.

I had a male quick jump connector on one end, clamps on the other.
The female quick jump connector was mounted behind the grill.

The problem came when wanting to jump between two vehicles that did not have the female quick jump connector!

My solution was to create a second short set (~2') that had a female quick connect on one end and clamps on the other, Thus the two sets could be hooked together for cables with clamps on both ends!

They are fine if you will always plug one end into your truck...
I found that was not always practical.

All the resistance adds up!

-Enjoy
fh : )_~

 

Well, I never ever had to jump tow vehicles other than my truck, so I will be fine in that. But the reistance thing is something worth looking into...

 

Use high quality cable and connectors (I use welding cable) and make good connections and there should be minimal resistance and amperage loss.

I have a set to plug into my truck and a cheapo set for using between other vehicles. They have a tendency to grow legs and not come back.

Jason