Hi all and thank you for a great site which has helped me on several ocations. But now a friend of mine has a problem with his 1992 E-350, 7.3 IDI. He is having problems starting, but only sometimes. When the engine is warm there are no problems. When it has cooled down it sometimes (like once every 10th time or so) totally refuses to catch.
There are new batteries and the starter turns the engine like a champ (more than 200 rev/min). Glowplugs are fine (both resistance and volts) and it seems that the glowplugrelay and controller are fine to (at least most of the time).
When refusing to start you can always get it going immediatly with ether so I guess there is not a problem with air in the fuellines (it is geting fuel to the injectors).
My first thought was that the glowplugcontroller is bad, sometimes not working at all. I told my friend, that next time it refuses to start to measure the voltage to the glowplugs, while heating, before starting it with ether (I also told him not to use ether and glowplugs at the same time).
Does anyone recognize this problem at all, and if so; a solution?
Thanks in advance, Bjarni

 

It might be fuel return lines.instead of glow plugs,controller.

 

also might want to remove the controller and clean all the terminals good.worked on mine, was getting good readings and terminals appeared clean till it removed it and found corrosion under the terminals

 

Next time it acts up check for smoke at the exhaust while cranking. If there is steady noticable smoke it is likely glow plug system if there is no smoke it is likely air sneaking in somewhere

 

Thanks guys

I will have this in mind, but it has not acted weird now for more than two weeks. The only "change" is that it has been ecceptionally dry up here, not a single raindrop in two weeks or more. We will see if it starts all over when it starts raining again. I guess that it could indicate corroded contacts which act up when it is more humid.

We will se, but once again, thanks