Then as far as I know the only thing that causes that is air in the IP.

 

So. Ummm. As it happens, it the problem may have been between the steering wheel and the seat.

I noticed when I was disconnecting the batteries that both of the positive terminals were somewhat loose. Not move freely loose, but enough that they could be wiggled off without loosening the bolt; they weren't very tight at all. We had disconnected the cables a few days ago when we were putting the foglights in, and go figure, that's right around the time the problem started. I didn't really connect the dots until we were putting them back in, and the positive terminals were being a PITA to tighten fully.

We ghetto rigged some "washers" on the nuts, now they're tight as can be. When my friend turned the key, the truck fired up in under a second, after sitting for 11 hours in the shade.

So, my hypothesis is that the starter wasn't getting enough juice to run at full speed, and running the glow plugs for a second time warmed the engine up enough that it didn't need so much help to start. I don't know if that would explain the difficult warm start the other day (it did seem to be cranking a bit slower than normal then), but it would seem to explain the trouble I had this morning.

I'm gonna try starting it again tomorrow morning. With any luck, this'll just be example #1,536,982,459 of why I'm not a very intelligent man, and not something that's actually the trucks fault.

If this doesn't solve it, then %$@# it, I'll just throw the kitchen sink at it. Lift pump, fuel filter, injector seals and return line, and probably battery cables. If it ultimately turns out to be the IP, I'll go ahead and invent some new curse words

I'll follow up after a few more starts to let you guys know if it keeps working correctly now. Thanks for the help you guys, you've all been absolutely awesome.

 

I didn't mean that it wouldn't need glow plugs to start if it was "warm" outside. He said he had trouble starting it after it had already been running for more than 20 minutes. That's what I was getting at. By that point, glow plugs are useless. In my old IDI's, once I ran the engine all the way up to operating temp once, I wouldn't have to hit my glow plugs the rest of the day, even after letting the truck sit for 4-6 hours.

 

mine doe's the rev thing also, IMO it is fuel that was pumped and not burnt, the WTS lite is for is a suggestion not a rule, the glows stay powered up after the lite go's out. it is just a indicator the glows on late modle systems sense how hot they are by the feed back loop in the controller, thus the clicking of the relay try waiting 15 seconds and then hit the key..my Van will lite off cold quik sometime's or she needs more cranking, its random. I allways set the Advancer with key on,(when the WTS lite is on) and give her throttle when cranking..the goal is to get her running..

 

My bad, sometimes I read things wrong and my fingers get away from me lol


OP, those loose connections could very well be the starting issue. Sounds like it may need some other maintenance stuff too but if that starter is not getting good juice and the engine is not spinning fast enough you will see issues. Good luck!

 

Just to follow up, the truck has been starting good. The coldest I've started it so far was around 50*F (it's California, that's freezing!), no problems. It's back to taking ~1-3 seconds of cranking to start, depending on the ambient temperature and how long it's been since I last started it. No sudden revs to 1500; methinks the theory about unburnt fuel was correct.

Lesson learned, always triple check the battery cables. If you can wiggle them even a little bit, they're too loose and the truck will be very unhappy. I'll be replacing them either next spring or whenever the truck decides that it's time, whichever comes first.


On a slightly unrelated note, does the high idle solenoid make an audible clunk when it deactivates? I noticed that on a California-cold morning, I started the truck and let it idle for the usual 3 minutes (normal rpms, ~600), and when I left and coasted to the stop sign, my RPM's were briefly higher than they normally would be. Just before I came to a full stop, I heard a clunk and the revs dropped right back down to normal idle. Was that the solenoid, or is there a midget under my hood with a hammer?

 

If you don't hit the throttle pedal when you first start the truck, the idle will be low until you do, say at 600rpm. But if you stab the throttle before cranking it(or after) then the solenoid will keep your rpms up by a few hundred. If that's working like it should, then maybe you could hear a clunk when it disengages. Maybe there's something else going on, but see if that happens more than once and you should be able to tell if it's a "normal" clunk or not, haha.