general questions
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Joined: Mar 2006
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general questions
I have an '89 7.3 that is a dog to start in the winter (I live in Wisconsin). Does anyone else have the same problems with any other engines? I know of 3 other diesels, of my dad's ('86 6.9L and '94 7.3L) and his employee's ('84 6.9L), that will pop right off after sitting for 2 weeks in below zero weather, but mine, since we got it brand new, has needed to be plugged in under 30 degrees, unless the batteries are brand new. I was just wondering if anyone else had run across this problem, or if my engine is just a bad one for that year. Also, has anyone had both front calipers drag on the rotors after the truck sat for a year or so? If so, is there any way to free them up short of buying new calipers, and is a super duty caliper any different from a normal 3/4 ton? Any help would be appreciated!
Last edited by brepp; Mar 19, 2006 at 09:06 PM.
Fleet Mechanic
Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 1,509
Likes: 3
From: Ladner, British Columbia
1.0 Difficult Cold Starts:
- Make sure the glow plug system is working properly. The IDI will blow white smoke and on cold days will not start or take a long time to start if the glowplugs are not working properly.
- Have fuel return hoses been replaced? These hoses tend to harden and eventually let air into the fuel system during engine cooldown which will cause difficult cold starting until the air has worked itself out during each cold start.
- Have you removed the two caliper looking pins, cleaned off all the rust and re-installed them with a small amount of neverseize?. Usually these pins end up rusting up and causing the calipers to stick. With all the salt on the roads around here I do mine twice a year and have not had any issues with caliper seizing since. Evenso the pins themself are Stainless steel and won't rust, the mounting brackets are steel and will build up rust causing them to seize up.
Lead Driver
Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 7,782
Likes: 221
From: Huntington Indiana
I would check the glow plug controler. Sounds like it might not be staying on long enough or glow plugs are not working. On my 93 I've replaced it 3 times. If yours is wired like mine I would also check to see if the controler ground wire has a really good ground. I wound up placing a separate wire from the battery grond terminal to the contoler ground. This seemed to fix a lot of my problems.
