Same stuff I used when I cleaned up my ground points on block, frame, and chassis. Didn't think about putting on GPR, but I will when I get a new one. The 8 oz tube will last me years. It's good stuff.

 

Any ideas on how to make or source a new wire boot to cover that hot terminal? Going to swing by the hardware store tomorrow to see what they have....

 

When I upgraded to Denso starter and 4/0 cable I found a boot on amazon. You should be able to find one on there

 

Might try some heat shrink of varying sizes, if you do not find the boot. But if you do find the boot can you post where. Or you might use the extra one on the AIH feeder that on one ever uses.

 

I had a cold start issue and it doesn't get that cold here in sunny so cal.
i just went ahead and replaced the glow plugs with OEM from Clay at riffraff. But the biggest difference came from shimming the injectors.
the injector armature shims wear out and cold thick oil will not pass through them enough until the oil gets hot and thinner.
do both at the same time while your under the valve covers. shims and glow plugs

here is my post. read through it .maybe it will help you..

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...ors-7-3-a.html

 

Confirmed it was the GPR today. Truck starts great on a short hit of the plugs. Still need to source a electrical boot cover for a clean install, currently using heat shrink tape. Now onto my pulsing EBPV issue. Have to determine if it’s the sensor or something else.

Thanks all all for your help!

 

Pretty sure EBPV surge/pulse is sensor or clogged tube.
You can just unplug it for a quick fix... it isn't really needed most of the time in our temps.

 

I've got a 2003 7.3 PSD. It struggles to start in California cold (less than about 50 F) weather. I've had the truck for three or four years now and every winter I get issues. I'm always able to get it started, but it's driving me totally crazy. Then summer comes along and I completely forget about it. My truck has some sort of tuner because I opted for upgraded injectors when mine needed to be replaced and it didn't idle correctly without the tuner and the oversize injectors. The main reason I even changed the injectors was that I thought it might help the cold start issues and then I made the stupid mistake of going oversize. Anyhow I've replaced the glow plug control module, I've ohm'd the glow plugs (all about 1 ohm) but I'm starting to think something else is wrong. I just cannot believe a truck like this won't start below 50F without something being terribly wrong.

I've also done a bunch of other maintenance which should have helped, but nothing will make it start when cold.

• new motorcraft glow pluts when I did the injectors
• new wiring for injectors and glow plugs (under the valve covers)
• new HPOP
• new positive battery leads
• brand new odyssey batteries
• Oil changes every 5000 miles with delo 15W40

For what it's worth, I get plenty of white smoke when cranking. To me this says that the HPOP is developing pressure and fuel is being injected. The engine does seem to slow down while cranking after about 2 seconds or so, but I believe this to be load on the starter motor from the HPOP as it gets to operating pressure. However, if it doesn't start after about 2.0s of cranking it won't. I stop, collect myself, cycle the ignition, wait 30s and try again.

I see two or three possible causes for this:

• Old engine with low compression. It's got 275k miles. Since temperatures inside the combustion chamber are driven by compression in a diesel low compression could certainly reduce those and make ignition difficult.
• Bad injectors. I got them from full force diesel, but the truck didn't start any better before I installed the new ones the the ones i've got only have maybe 30k miles on them.
• Glow plugs not being turned on by PCM

I realize there has been a lot of discussion all over the internet about cold starts and I can promise you all I've done all I can not to repeat stupid questions. Any advice you're willing to give would be greatly appreciated. Even just how to test some of my hypotheses. Thanks in advance.

 

@Marc Grossman About two years ago, I bought two brand new Odyssey Batteries. It was summer time and the old batteries had grown tired. The colder weather set in the same year and so did a cold start situation to where the truck had to be plugged in to start at 45F and below. One of the batteries had a dead cell in it. I never would have guessed that one. So, start at the source. Have the batteries load tested. Its not a waste of time. And yes, it could be that simple. Welcome to FTE. "No shame in not knowing; Only in not learning."

 

Oh please.... its not a tired old engine.... I'll swap engines with you anytime !

Check out batteries...

Check out starter...

It should start with no problems, even down to 30 degrees.... even if glow plugs aren't working

 

So I've done some investigating and my batteries are good... With the ignition on and glow plugs and various other stuff drawing 150 amps the battery voltage was 12.3V. That is a healthy battery. I measured this with my fluke amp-clamp and my fluke multimeter simulataneously. Wish I'd done this a long time ago as it appears I may have had no glow plugs for the past three years. Doesn't matter all that much in central valley CA where on a really cold day it might only get as cool as 30F.

I'm starting to think the issue is with my tuner (hydra). It seems that I may have gotten a tune that isn't quite right for my truck, and I'm digging into that now and will have an update tomorrow. For what it's worth I've never messed with the hydra. The only reason I got it was because i got some sort of enlarged injectors and the truck didn't idle right without it.

Yesterday prior to posting I had amp-clamped the leads that supply the truck (fusible links). With ignition on saw only a few amps draw. Then I unplugged the oil temperature sensor expecting glow plugs to definitely draw a ton of amps, but still only a few amps. I contacted fullforcediesel today and they told me to connect my computer to the hydra and check the box code on the PCM and some sort of hex code for the tune/pcm (still a bit unclear on all this). I did, and may or may not have adjusted some setting (truly not sure) and now all of a sudden I get 150 amp draw tricking down to about 90 amps just before glow plugs shut off and draw goes to only a few amps when I turn the ignition on with a "cold" (70F) engine. Then I started and idled the engine for 10 min and tried again. Near zero current... because oil temp was probably high enough that the PCM didn't think it would need glow plugs to start. Then I unplugged oil temp sensor and the draw was back to the 150 amps.

I think I may have had a tune that wasn't using any glow plugs at all.

I'm gonna be in touch with fullforcediesel again tomorrow to try and get a better understanding of what's going on and I'll report back.

Thanks for all the advice.

 

I'm really liking this post. Sometimes folks ask for help and then they are never heard from again. Which Fluke meter do you have. I have two Fluke 373, but AC Current reading only. Justin Case; the falling amperage is the resistance in the glow plug rising as they heat up. So that is why you see the amperage going down. IMO, your going to get this figured out. Ford Up.

 

I have a fluke 117 mulitmeter and a fluke 376 amp-clamp/multimeter. For what it's worth I don't know why I never tried this before. I've had this problem for years (a few times a year) and only recently have gotten pissed off enough about it to fix it.

If you're having starting issues, one easy way to see if your glow plugs are working, or at least appear to be working is to amp-clamp the fusible link that comes off the positive terminal of the passenger side battery. You should see many amps like 60-150 amps for maybe 10-120 seconds from when you turn the ignition on. You can force the glow plugs and fuel heater to turn on by disconnecting the oil temp sensor from the back of the hpop reservoir. The current will decrease with time as the glow plugs heat up and increase their resistance. Nominally my glow plugs were about 1 ohm cold. At 12V, that's 12 amps per glow plug times 8 = 96 amps just for the glow plugs. If you don't see currents like that something is wrong. Furthermore I noticed the glow plug control module got warm... no surprise it's pushing 100 amps through it.

FullForceDiesel sent me new tunes that I've now put in my Hydra tuner, but while dicking around trying to fish a usb cable in there I popped off a diode from the tuner board. I contacted the people that make the hydra and they were super helpful. They confirmed it was a diode and told me which orientation to put it back in. So I'll solder it back in later today and then I'll have my tunes back with glow plugs this time hopefully. For what it's worth they offered to sell me a reduced-cost hydra tuner since I'd clearly be throwing the old one away given that it's useless without some of its electrical components. Sure FullForceDiesel MAY (verdict still pending) have sent me the wrong tunes initially (because it's a damn CA truck), but they've been really helpful since I let them know about my issues. The people that make the hydra were super nice too. Good people all around in the diesel world.

 

If you cannot find the correct rubber boot, try a on it to prevent voltage leak.

 

I'm now 99.9% certain my cold start issues are over. Used a trip to the mountains as an excuse to see if the truck would start cold. It soaked overnight at 30F and I started it first thing in the morning no issues. Prior to fixing the issue it might have taken me 20 attempts to get it started. This time it started on the first try after waiting with ignition on (glow plugs on) for about 30 seconds.

It turns out that I was given a bad tune (that didn't use glow plugs) and that has been a minor pain in my side every winter for three years. The upside is now that I finally got pissed off enough to dig into it I've got a much better understanding of all that's going on.