A friend of mine has an 01 F250 SuperDuty he bought used with around 70K on it. He went deer hunting recently and the temperature dipped to the upper 20's. He experienced a hard start condition and had to wait until the temperature got up into the 50's to get the thing started. When he got back to town, we checked the continuity of the glow plugs and found two open on the right bank. Did all 8 glow plugs, under valve cover harnesses and replaced the aftermarket glow plug relay with a factory part. We did this and all was fine it fired up and ran smooth after clearing the small amount of oil that got by the glow plugs. The pickup sat for 3 days before he started it again and when he did, it started hard and would hunt for idle pretty badly, when it warmed up after dying a number of times then it runs fine. I had him double check the connectors for the valve covers were all the way seated (external plugs). Service engine light is on when I runs poorly until warm. I had him unplug the ICP sensor and try to restart it. It made the hunting worse. He ended up taking it to a shop and have them scan it, but low and behold after sitting overnight, it wouldn't fail. He decided to take it Elk hunting anyway. Just got a call from him and he barely got it started again. Ambient temp is 32 degrees outside where he is at. He said on the trip back to town, the thing died 10 or 15 times. I told him to put a cam sensor in it and let me know if it changes anything. I do not have a scanner, but may be getting auto enginuities Ford package in the near future. I have some experience with scored pintles on the injectors due to lack of oil maintenance, but this things was babied from the previous owner and I don't think that is the issue. I had him look at the PCM and it does have a banks chip of some sort in it. I had him make sure it was pushed in all the way. He is running Delo 400 LE and it only has 2200 miles on the oil. Where would be the most prudent direction to take at this point. I am a service technician at a hyster/bobcat dealership, so I am comfortable troubleshooting electrical as well as symptom based. Temp seems to be the constant, but without a scanner at this point I don't want to just start swapping parts. The questions I have are as follows:

1. IPR - Getting sticky when the oil is cold?
2. IDM problem - Would temperature have an effect on the IDM with respect to starting?
3. Injectors - I have assessed injectors with a buzz test in the past, how noticeably quieter will they be cold?
4. GPR - 12.63V B terminal of relay and when energized, output dropped to 10.5 ish but this was when the pickup started good.

I will stop rambling at this point and let you guys do what you do. Please feel free to bounce questions off me and I look forward to getting your guys input. Thanks.

Andrew

 

Sticky at the top of this board is for Cold / Winter hard/no starts:

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...ky-thread.html

 

I would double check the new GPR with a volt meter and ohm the glow plugs to make sure everything is functioning properly first. Remember new doesn't always equal good.

Then if it's narrowed down to certain temps, see if it makes a difference plugging the truck in for a few hours first. If you get AE, do a buzz test on a cold engine when the temps would cause problems. See if some of the injectors sound weak.

You could also pull the valve covers on a cold morning and start the truck to see if all 8 injectors are spitting oil the same way. If you've got several injectors not spitting oil from the discharge port, then those injectors are likely worn out. Watch them as the engine warms up and you'll probably see them start spitting oil and notice the truck start to run smoother.

 

Subcribing

 

Thanks for the replies guys. I have been reading post after post trying to look for similarities in the symptoms we are experiencing. He will be gone a week and I am sure he will be updating me on the goings on.

Andrew