Quote:
Originally Posted by granny_rocket
Can the starter be rebuilt? There is a place down the street from me that rebuilds starters and generators and such

X2 on what Joseph said I would head right on down the street to the re builders and tell them what you have going on, often those guys can be very helpful. It could be that they don't work with the public though, it wont' hurt to ask. I have found that some can and will rebuild to different qualities for a little more, just check it out.

 

OK well I had a few minutes tonight when I got home to take a look at the truck. Here's an update and I'm still baffled. Something is telling me it's NOT the starter OR a combination of things with the starter being one. I believe it's not the starter only because once the truck has been running it cranks fine. Just curious here but if the starter is currently working and you say it needs to be rebuilt, what actually gets rebuilt? New windings or do you think maybe it just needs brushes?

Anyway here's what I found. First I cleaned off the battery terminals on the cable side. The batteries are new to the posts were clean. I doped it up with Noalox, an anti-sieze/ant-galling compound that electricians use inside your home's electrical panel when connecting aluminum service cables. It's dielectric. Cleaning the cables didn't do squat.

I metered the batteries (well both at once because they're both attached) and I'm getting 12.5 volts. I get 12.5 volts at the starter solenoid and 12.5 at the glow plug relay control terminal. What strikes me as odd is that I was only getting around 11 volts at the input on the glow plug relay. I wasn't getting any output on the glow plug relay so I'm going to assume my relay is shot again. It was a cheapy one the last time I replaced it. SO I know I at the least need a GPR.

After letting the glow plugs "run", I went to crank the truck over and the starter solenoid just clicked. At that point I closed her up and walked away. It's getting cold out and I didn't want to deal with it in the dark.

Any other thoughts? It's as if the starter is not getting full current. I haven't check the output of the starter solenoid as I need two people, one to crank while I hold the meter. I'm just reluctant to rebuild the starter for no reason. It didn't seem to show any signs of wearing before except for the fact it cranked a little slow which I attested to 7 year old batteries.

I'll dig around a little more tomorrow when it's light and a little warmer out.

thanks!

 

I know your getting fed up with this but my experience was the starter checked out fine at Auto Zone but I bought a new one instead. It cranked really fast with the new starter. Your's might crank good after every thing is warned up but because its getting old but not so good when its cold.

 

It takes a lot less to start these rigs after they are warmed up

 

yea that does make sense. right now the motor oil is a lump of sludge waiting to be warmed up. One thing I forgot to mention... after i put the new batteries in sunday morning, I went to crank it and same situation - slow crank. I threw a batter charger on it for about 10 minutes and figured eh might as well try it. Engine still cold as ice yet it cranked fast/normal and started right up.

I'm not a total idiot but is there something in our starters that would draw current from the battery while it is NOT engaged? I mean when I click the key on what else draws current from the battery before starting? Glowplugs I know and some other relays but it almost seems as if something has started draining power from the batteries. Something from what I'm seeing/hearing says its not the starter. I know, I know it probably is but I want to explore all possible solutions. I'm having a hard time scrapping money together for a tank of fuel (ok, its not as bad as it sounds I just need to be cost conscious) so a $150 starter or even $75 for a rebuild is just out of my budget. I just want to bounce ideas around. I'm going out now to poke around a bit more. I'll see if I can find a bad connection, bad relay, something. If not then the starter is getting replaced/rebuilt!

Thanks As Always!

 

Try this: Turn the ignition off and take the key out. Disconnect the negative terminals on the batteries. Then take a meter that reads amps and put one probe of the meter on the negative battery post and the other on the negative clamp on the battery cable. That will tell you how much draw there is on the batteries with the ignition off. You shouldn't have more than 0.012 amp I believe. Hope this helps.

Red

 

Face it your starter is shot.

 

Hey folks,
Just thought I'd throw in an update here. I got the truck started no problems...well one minor problem. But here's what I've discovered! First and foremost the battery terminals weren't the cleanest. I scrubbed them shinier than mr cleans bald head. I greased (dielectric) them up and made sure they were tight. I shut off my glow plug relay (I have a switch) and cranked it over. She spun up fast and smooth as silk. Mind you it's 42* cold, here in NJ. I turned the GPR on and cranked. It dragged again. Shut relay then hotwired the relay terminals with jumper cables and before the wait to start light went out it fired right up.

SO long story short the GPR is somehow over-drawing current from the batteries and screwing up power capacity to the starter. The glow plugs are fine because when they were hot wired they worked perfect. I'll be ordering a stance relay and hopefully never dealing with a relay issue again!

Definitely dodged a bullet here. A $50 relay is way better than a $150 starter! Albeit if I had the cash to do so I'd replace/rebuild the starter anyway.

Thanks so much everyone for all the help.

 

Nothing magic about the GPR, it just a big pair of contacts. I suspect the problem will return when you put the new relay on. A good glow plug system will draw 64 amps of current, robbing a marginal starter of the current required to spin it faster.

Good news is you will have a new GPR.
Bad news is the starter will still be toast.

Hope I'm wrong though ...

 

(so a $150 starter or even $75 for a rebuild is just out of my budget.)
you might own the wrong truck if $150.00 is out of your budget!

I subscribe to the theory that if you own a diesel you should keep $5,000.00 in a maintenance fund.
they don't break often but when they do they are expensive.

 

Amen to that!!

 

Agreed ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

A big pair of contacts that HAVE to work good. If the voltage held better by jumpering the relay than by running it normally, that's a pretty texbook case of a bad relay. Easy way to confirm - turn the key to RUN and put a voltmeter on the "always on" big terminal of the relay (black probe to ground), measure the voltage. Then do the same with the other big terminal. If the difference is more than 0.3V, the relay is done. It may be putting _some_ voltage out to the GPs, but if it's pulling the whole system voltage down that far, it will indeed prevent the truck from starting.

 

I don't see how a gpr can over draw. The only thing I can see is if the gpr is shorted out and some how grounding to the engine.

 

Too much resistance in the contact circuit will drop the voltage.