That sounds about right so may not gain you any thing wiring in a manual switch.

I use a Kats magnetic heater to snap on to the block. Normally I use it on my farm tractor diesels. Another location is the fuel tank if it gets down cold enough. The problem with 3 or more heaters is you begin to overload the electrical circuit at your house.

A 1500 watt block heater will draw around 13 amps.
A pan heater somewhere in the range of 1.7 amps.
Battery blanket in the range of .52 amp.

Would depend on what size wire was used if you could get away with it or not. You might end up warming more that you attended to.

There is no free lunch with these engines. They are not that hard of starting if everything is correct. That is the correct term if everything is correct. Good batterys, cables and starter will go a long way towards spinning the motor at the right speed. Loose that RPM and you may not get it to start. Glow plugs all heating to the correct temp for the correct amount of time is the other big factor.

At this point if I was there and hands on I would verify the fuel shut off was working on the pump. If it is stuck in the off position you never will get it to fire. Check fuel to filter and then from filter to pump. Open a couple of high pressure lines and crank it a few times. You should see fuel injection everytime that cylinder is on compression. If the truck is a manual transmission I would enlist the help of a friend and give it a good tug. There is a slight possibility that you have washed down the cylinder walls and have lost a lot of compression.

I am not faulting you but it would seem you make lots of assumptions. For instance you said the motor was rebuilt 160K ago. So what does that mean? To me it means nothing to be quite honest. That was then this is now. The only way you are going to know what is going on now is a compression test which should tell you what is going on today! If that passes muster then move on to the glow plugs and check them, I know you said new but does that mean they actually work? From the information provided I would say they probably are but the truck is in your court so you are the one that has to provide that answer. If you have compression within specs and glow plugs that are working correctly that pretty much leaves you with a fuel system issue. You have not said how long the truck has sit that I recall but todays fuels go bad pretty quickly. You may have pump issues. You said injectors around 6K ago if I recall correctly. What about the pump? Ever consider that a weak tired pump might get tired injectors to open but bring them back into specs especially high end specs and the pump may not be able to open the injectors? Would you change a pump and not replace the fuel filter? I have never understood why someone spends the money and time and only does half a job. Unless you have been playing with the timing I will assume it is close enough to run, may not be quite correct but if it ran before where it is sit I would think it should still run at that sitting.

Good luck and report back with some numbers.

 

To be fair I do make lots of assumptions but I try to keep them in the range of educated guesses as I have been troubleshooting this truck every weekend for the past little while. But as I only have weekends currently to work on the truck it’s a bit tough. However I’ve picked up a compression tester from Napa finally and I’ll get a definitive answer. I’ll also look into the fuel shutoff solenoid which that could be too, we’ll see. I’m not 100% sure on the injection pump being amazing but it never once had trouble hot starting and I never had to do the cold water trick. I mention that it’s been rebuilt because i think that with 160k on it they did it semi alright, so i find it hard to believe it’s an internal problem and also dont wanna think that. It only sat for a month and a half max since I haven’t ran it too much this winter
Thank you for your suggestions. I’ll throw in some STP diesel treat, crack my lines, and see if I get anything in the filter. Thank you much for the suggestions and I’ll update the thread Saturday and Sunday.

 

I totally get what you are saying and hoping for. I hope that the basic engine is sound. You need to start someplace though and I would start with compression and build from there.

I turned wrenches enough in my early years to learn if you start with the basics and build it usually falls into place pretty fast. Easier to justify the bill with the customer too!

Keep in mind that the fuel system is going down hill every day that it sits. Not saying this is your issue but think if it this way. The truck has not been run very much over the past five years. Never enough to top off the tanks. So five years of old fuel and finally it gets to the point the rack sticks in the pump. Not saying this is what has happened but I bring it up because it is easy to assume the pump is OK as it worked fine the last time it ran.

According to the pump shop I have dealt with over the years they claim the LSD does not play well with these old pumps. No or little lubrication, they call it a dry fuel.

 

that was true 10+ years ago. but there is just as much if not more lubrication in the ULSD now that there was in high sulfur diesel.

 

I see what you’re saying, and so far my buddies and uncle have both said it seems to be a fuel issue, but I seem to be stuck with where is the problem, I’ve done fuel return lines the lift pump fuel filter injector o rings the basics of it. But yeah I guess next would be cracking lines and inspecting tank lines. On the note of sitting, to my knowledge, the truck was ran at LEAST twice a week for the last 2 years. The old guy who owned it before me was an ex welder who needed a double lung transplant and then weekly checks, thus he was driving it roughly 700 km a week consistently.

 

To help narrow down the issue as much as possible I would suggest bypassing all the fuel system from the tanks up to the transfer pump. If I am reading it correctly you still have a mechanical lift pump correct? Pull the flex hose off at the pump and in it's place install about 6 to 7 feet of tubing the same size as the flex hose. Get a 5 gallon pail of diesel and set somewhere in the area where your temp hose will reach it. You will need to bleed the air out of the hose. I am sure you can figure that out. Once you have fuel at the lift pump then you should have a known good fuel supply system to work with providing the lift pump is doing it's job. That you can quickly check at the test port on the fuel filter head. Keep in mind fuel return is still going back to a tank. Within about 20 minutes you should be able to verify if you need to be looking for issues in the low pressure fuel supply side of the system or not. Hopefully this will give you some ideas where next in the system you need to go.

What you are doing if you follow these steps is a flow chart. Question one is the engine in sound enough shape that I should be able to expect it to run. Yes or No. How do I determine this? Compression test. If yes go to step two. If no repair as needed and retest.

Is the engine preheat system working correctly? Yes or No. How do I determine this? Measure system amperage demand (right around 200 amps total on a good working system) If yes go to step 3. If no repair as needed and retest.

Step 3 is the engine being supplied fuel?

I think you can see how this works.

What you need is a plan and then work your plan. I realize this can seem overwhelming until you do it a few times. Fifty years ago I was just starting out and faced many of the issues you are going through now. Do not get discouraged, learn from your mistakes. I always have believed they are only mistakes if you do not learn from them if you do learn then they are teaching leasons!

The story I am passing on has nothing to do with diesel fuel engines but was a fuel system issue. Happened to me when I was about 18. Customer brought a Ford car into the shop I was working at saying it would not idle correctly but ran OK at higher RPM. Car had a V8 motor with motorcraft 2V carb. Very common power plant for 1970's vintage. Step one check compression it was OK. Step 2 did it have spark? Well I knew it did as it did run and had driven in under own power. Still to make sure and that I was not shooting myself in the foot I hooked the engine up to a scope. The picture showed me that I did have 8 spark traces. Ignition system seemed to check OK. That left me with the fuel system. Tried adjusting the idle mixture screws. One screw responded as I expected. The other screw was no responce at all. Issue found, plugged idle circuit. Customer was told they needed a carb cleaning or remaned carb installed and that should solve the issues they were having. I guess a wet behind the ears kid did not have the answers they wanted to hear. Owner of car talks to shop foreman. Foreman decides that the car had a bad intake valve so heads needed pulled for valve job. Customer was a fair back yarder and usually did things himself. It was just he could not figure out this time what was going on. So he has a plan in hand foreman told him he needed a valve job etc. Long story short heads get pulled valve job done and reinstalled on car. And as I assume you have guessed when car was started back up still had poor idle condition. Only then did the part that the testing had showed to have an issue was actually addressed. Certainly made a different engine when it was supplied with the proper amount of fuel.

My point in that story is believe in yourself. Start with the basics and keep moving until you find the condition that becomes a NO and zero into that area for more testing. Honestly my gut says you are going to find a fuel system issue of some sorts. My gut also says you have probably thrown a few issues into the system now that were not there before. So to establish some known base lines to work with you need to do some testing and then provide that information so we all can see what you have.

 

back finally to the thread,
with the help of my moms new boyfriend, I deduced the lift pump wasn’t pushing enough pressure due to the lobe on the cam being worn ( they must not have changed the cam when rebuilding it ) it made no fuel to the outlet but the inlet from the tanks could still push fuel. I ordered an electric lift pump and hopefully it will solve it. Thank you for all your help I’ll update the thread in a few days if anyone’s interested and let you know how it’s running

 

actually it is not a lobe on the cam.it is the eccentric bolted to the front of the cam.
they are no longer available from ford or international, and they wear out over time.
a facet duralift 40222 fuel pump is the recommended pump for these engines.
https://www.pegasusautoracing.com/pr...asp?RecID=9705
then get a big block chevy fuel pump block off plate and put it over the hole the lift pump is currently in.
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/s...AaAvCDEALw_wcB

 

alrighty I’ll place an order tonight. Thanks a million TJC, IHC , and charmalu for all being active in the threads and being a huge help to me and the progress with my truck, I’m excited to get her back on the road and hauling like she’s built for. Again thank you all it’s been a real pleasure learning all this.

 

that is what we are here for, helping others when we can.

 

Fuel Pump , it's always the fuel pump I swear,

I read a few comments, someone else had mentioned these, but I'll add my 2c, for future cold weather starting tips.

Someone said it, but yes it works good, You can Jam a heat gun or hair dryer to blow hot air into the intake for 15 minutes, get any kind of block heater to help, disconnect glow plugs and use ether, and pour boiling water onto the batteries to warm them up right before keying it over.

Good choice with an electric fuel pump, i'd get a real good quality one. Welcome to the IDI family.

 

Your engine should not "stink of diesel," just because it doesn't start when you crank it. Any unused fuel should go back to the tank via the return lines. I suspect that there's a leak in the return lines that is making the fuel system lose its prime. Put on a return line kit.

 

me thinks he means the exhaust stinks of diesel, not the engine itself.

 

Here is how to wire it:

Both items easily found online or any auto parts store.