My Capt. here at the fire station has his in-laws' F350. Its a 2000 DRW with 81,500 original miles. His in-laws hardly ever drive it anymore so its time to let her go. He has it now to get it all cleaned up nice and ready for Craigslist.

But it's getting extremely difficult to start when cold. He has to go out there and work it for at least 15 minutes before it will idle on its on. It will start and then eventually die down. Then he will turn it over for a good while until it finally, yet slowly, comes to life. This goes on for many cycles. Once the temp. needle starts to move, it's warm enough to idle smooth as a brand new sewing machine.

Is this just the glow plugs? Seems to me once it will crank a time or two, there would be enough heat in there to allow it to start and run more easily. But that's certainly not the case.

 

Lots of views. No replies. Any guesses out there?

 

 

No codes. Just a really long time to get it to stay running. Sometimes he'll hold the starter for 15-20 seconds and you can hear the engine finally starting to slowly come to life. Makes me wonder if he's going to burn the starter up. But there's no other way to crank it.

 

Moved to 1999-2003 PSD engine forum.

 

Glow plugs would be my first guess. If the truck has a block heater on it, then plug it in overnight and see if it starts better. You can also check the battery voltage before turning the key on and then again while glow plugs should be on.

 

Do an oil change with 5/40...with key on(first turn of morning), test output lug of relay. Will have a big brown and big yellow wires attached to it. See if you get any reading, then report back

 

Here is my cold-start thread:

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

It contains the advice above, along with more details of how to test the glow plug system, advice on oil, the block heater, and mention of out-of-season or old fuel.

Not mentioned in that thread -- and worth checking out in your case -- would be water in the fuel. Sounds like the truck has been sitting for a while. Only 81K on it? It's barely broken in! The vultures will be circling when it goes on Craigslist.

ETA: Crank for no more than 20 seconds, and then wait at least 20 seconds before trying again. That will reduce the odds of burning up the starter.

 

Glow plugs, strong batteries and 5W40 should fix that. You can check the GP ohms at that UVCH connectors on the outside of the VC's. The two outer pins on each side of each plug feed to the glow plugs. I can't remember what ohms you should have but someone here probably does. I'm thinking something less that 2 is what you need as a maximum. And, check function of GPR like timmiyboy said.

 

Update. He plugged it in last night for the entire night. Truck fired up this morning just fine.

It still blows my mind that once the truck fires up the first time, you would think that heat alone would be enough to keep it going.

 

Well, that puts me looking at the GPR, glow plugs, and related wiring including UVCHs. Or thick oil. First pick is the GPR; break out your meter and test it.

 

Well, just a huge thanks to everyone here for your help. At the fire station today, I had a volt meter in my truck. Thanks to YouTube, we found out how to test the GPR for voltage. It was dead as a hammer.

CarQuest here in our territory had one and with the firefighter discount, it was less than $50. Got it installed, let the plugs warm up a few seconds, and the truck fired right up.

I can only imagine how mad he would have been had he changed out the glow plugs only to find out that was not the problem.

Thanks again.

 

Good deal, easy fix, congratulations and thanks for following up.

 

Very awesome! Glad you were able to easily pinpoint the issue and quickly fix it.

 

I'd love to see photos of truck and what he wants for it ? !