At about wits end with this dang truck. New batterys and glow plugs, gp relay has a good ground and works. Wait to start light comes on for a normal amount of time. Still does not start reliably. Gets fuel fine, I've already tried cracking the lines and cranking it. White smoke out the tailpipe. HELP!

 

Plug truck in for a few hour and see how it starts. What did you use for glowplugs?

 

If you're getting white fuel haze out of the pipe, fuel is fine.

How fast is the starter spinning?
What brand of GPs? Have you OHMed them with a meter to see if all are still good?

My controller cycles fine, but I bypassed it and went with a push button setup. Hold for 10 seconds first thing in the morning. It fires every time, and doesn't cycle every time I start when running around town.

 

I used motorcraft spark plugs. It started right up when I first put the new ones in and it was cold. This thing truly has a mind of its own I swear. It cranks great. Can the WTS light come on even if the gp aren't being cycled?

 

Check your glow plug harness they do fail with age.

 

So i was wrong. Glow plugs are not cycling despite the wts light working. I jumped the relay for 5 seconds and she fired up

And i just relised I said I used spark plugs...

 

Okay so you need to check your signal out of the module to the relay than you may have a module failure and its not powering it up. But sounds like a module or relay failure.

 

I started on the manual glow plug setup. I didn't do anything with the blue wire because I didn't get where it was supposed to go. I could still here the relay click so I figured it was heating the glow plugs. I don't think so. Wouldn't start. It only starts if I directly jump the big posts on the glow plug relay

 

Get a replacement relay and try that. My guess is that the relay's contacts are shot, but it still is "functional".

Be aware that there are two similar-shape relays - one for the glow plug controller, and one for the starter.
They are(or can be) the same size, same number of terminals...
On the glow plug relay, the coil or "control" terminals(what turns it on) are the two small posts.
On the starter relay, the coil terminals are one of the small posts(labeled "s" usually) and the steel base plate of the relay.

Be sure not to confuse the two, or it won't work right.

Once you have a new relay, test it by putting ground to one of the small posts, and power to the other. It should click(note: just test it in free space; it does NOT need to have anything else connected for this test.

 

agreed. it sounds like your glow plug controller is working, but the glow plug relay has bad contacts internally.

 

I have it on a manual switch and i can hear it click on and off

 

relay clicking on and off only means the relay is opening and closing. if the contact discs are burned it will still click, but not send power out to the glow plugs.
you need to confirm it is sending power to the glow plugs when the contacts close.

 

And *enough* power. I had a "working" relay, but it was losing about 2V(or around 20%) of the power through it, so all the glow plugs wouldn't heat up nearly as well.

 

Well Autozone had a GP relay for $18.99 but I didn't have a chance to install it. Will do tomorrow and report back. If the relay doesn't do it what should I look at next?