My esteemed peers,

The wife demands i take her (my loyal,warrior poet '84 Clubwagon) out in a field and shoot her between the headlights. I bought her a few years back and she was my first (diesel). There will be no looking back.

Electrical woes were soon to follow my purchase of her. But I think If I had a clue what i was doing, Id be okay... and so would she... I am a Rig hand and can take apart anything I can find, clean it, repair it and put it back together better than I found it.. dont ask me what its called... as the whole van is comprised of "thingys"...

Within two days of this site I have learned allot of terminology, and usefull info. I just want to make her work so I can justify keeping her without getting "cut off" on the homestead front.

Help me brothers and sisters! She doesnt understand why I love this diesel!

Purchased with electrical fans. ?. That doesnt seem right. Fans burned out/failed. Engine overheated. Replaced water pump. I have a new thermostat but where do i put it? Should i take the fans off and mount a mechanical fan to one of the threaded thingys on the front of the motor?

Glow plugs stopped working. AAAAArghhh. Replaced them all with new Ford plugs. Nothing. Ended up replacing the wrong solonoid (starter). And so Im using ether (just a whisper as i know this stuff is hard on the ol girl).

And now... she wont start... I can jump the poles and she will turn... only she wont stop... I dismantled the steering column looking for a faulty ignition switch, from the steering wheel down... only to find it in plainish view above by brake pedal. I put everything back (clean as a whistle), and then removed the switch. It looked good. Harness was good. Connections clean. I made it cleaner and put it back. Nothing. I inspected the neutral safety switch. I found it in awful shape (broken open and full of road grime). I replaced it.... nothing... I just inspected and cleaned my fuse box. I have one burnt out Emergency fuse. I will replace it.

Squire me to the ways of the diesel lover, that i might in turn help some other poor nimrod like myself to make his machine a thing of wonder.

I have paid for this thing twice. I probably only needed to pay for her maybe 1 1/4 times. I will not give up.

 

As far as the fans go..... I personally would put the mechanical fan on. If you wanted to, you could use one or both of your electric fans as a back-up that are turned on by your thermostat... Depending on the kind of thermostat you have the installation can vary... But remember... by nature, a diesel will cool itself down at idle so you really don't need the electric fans.. If you put the mechanical fan back on and you still overheat, you have cooling issues elsewhere....


Your glow plugs... you will more than likely have to change the control module... I am not too awful up to speed on glow plug systems but I'm sure that there will be several other members that will be able to help ya out there...

And for your starting trouble.... I have had the same thing happen before and it was due to getting the wrong solinoid at the parts store... Also, make sure you don't have any of the wires crossed... (no offence... its a common happening expecially when you are frustrated...)


Hope some of this helps....

 

Sir Blue,

I will take his custom wiring nightmare off, and put on a mechanical fan. This fella hung a sheet of wood in front of the rad to mount all this stuff to. I will remove it all. But where is this thermostat? I suspect its in the rad hose at the top of the block... but i dont want to open a can of methanol worms unless im instructed i have a percentage likelyhood of sucess...

I FOUND THE CONTROL MODULE! WAH HAHAHAHA! In the E350 its on the driverside head at the very rear. Right next to, and just left of the oil pressure sender (from the drivers seat). Dave has indicated this is risky to remove. I have ample room with the engine hood off... oh the temptation... Could it be a coolant temperature sender giving mixed info to the controler? Its next after the starter issue.

Getting her started is first. I am looking at the new solenoid and the old one, and i see that the new ones smaller poles are identical in size while my old ones small poles differ by about an eighth inch in diameter. As for wires crossed, i have one large black wire on one large pole and four large others on the other large pole. The ignition wire is on the the small pole marked "I".

grackenfrackenmotornotstarten

 

Well... with any luck Dave will be online later because he is the master of the IDI motor... I really wish I could help you more there with the glow plugs...

As for the starting problem... what exactly does the van do.... It has also come to my memory that I had the switch under the column act up on me once before... What had happened was that the rod that runs down the top of the column got hung up and wouldn't let the truck start... Just an idea....

I will keep poundin my head against the desk for now and try to think of something else...

 

Blue,

I have inspected the "long rod" and it slides freely... I turned the ignition into its most rear position, seated the ignition switch tightly against it, and bolted it firmly back in place. I hear a click when i try and turn the motor over... but nothing from my brand new starter.

What is this ignition actuator?

Is there a relay that could be burnt out?

Thank you so much for lending a brain to this... im a bit lost still...
Getting tho!

 

So if you jump the solinoid your motor just keeps cranking??

 

yeah!

my batteries are run down now. Wont get a charge till the wifey gets home from the hospital (work) in the morning. But yeah! It cranks till i pull the cables off the batteries. Strangest thing.

Rig Rocketeer

 

solenoid is bad... thats all I could think of there.....

 

upon climbing through my engine compartment I discovered that my air filter was full of dead bugs and oil. Dead bugs, well okay. This thing has an air scoop of some sort attached to the grill with no screen. (see zigsters page)Oil. Not good. Rooted around here and found out about a CDR valve, and its function.

So I ripped it out and discovered its no longer a valve. Its more of a culvert now. Tried cleaning it and just got chunks of carbonized black bits. For my brothers and sisters who dont know what it is:

And I sort of quote "a tuna can shaped thingy behind your air intake". Its a sort of breather valve from your crank case. If it jams with crud it becomes a mixed air/oil additive to gum up your #7-8? cylinders. Indicated by a heavy dose of oily schmegma on your air filter directly in front of it.

Part# E3TZ-6A665A IH#1805319c1

The part store knows me by name during spring break-up.

Still no start. Tommorrow ill rip out the newish starter, replace the block heater I know is fried and thermostat I suspect is fried. (Since I'll have room to breath down there) And get the dam thing tested. If someone else can fix my girl... so can I dammit...

Dave... dave.... dav.... da... d....
Where are you? I know you exist. I just know it...

The ongoeing saga will continue. Till I either kill the ol girl or admit i just cant fix her (not fricken likely).... in terminology that even I can grasp...
Ps. I appreciatted the whole "way back, no cheating now"... description of a glow plug control. But in the E350 its on the drivers side. Thank god for engine hoods in vans! Yeah!

This site will either find a budding champ in me... or ban me... As i intend to use it as a diary of the restoration of the "long range bomber".

 

I am here, you seem to have several problems. I am answering this in stages as I read the initial post.

Thermostat is located below the alternator at the lower end of the upper radiator hose. The only thermostat you may install must come for either Ford or International, it will have a rubber boot around the outside of the thermostat. The others will cause problems, and I figure where it is located in an E series, you will only want to do that job once.

 

well... petrochemical induced insanity aside... yeah...

Mr Sponaugle sir. I am honored... Can you help me... the start problem is My greatest concern... the rest is just a chronicle of my journey to help others...

 

Can you do voice over messenger?

 

There are two solenoids that activate the starter.

I am not farmiliar with the E series layout so this may be interesting.
Sounds to me like one of your solenoids is sticking closed, now to find out which one it is.

Are you jumping the upper solenoid to get it cranking?

On an 84 you should have one near the battery, it has one wire that is always hot from the battery that is about 10 AWG one one large terminal. The other large terminal has one wire also about 10 AWG that runs down to the small terminal on the starter. The small terminal has the wire that comes from the ignition switch "Start" terminal.

On an F series the terminal closest to the battery has battery voltage on it, the rear terminal runs down to the starter.

 

Conversation (with Dave) recap:

I do have two identical solonoids mounted between each headlight and battery (pucklike objects with four poles, two large two small). And an unrelated (?) one that looks like a crucified red bull can with a crown of poles directly between them on the rad).

I used the solonoid on the passenger/starter side to jump the starter. This solonoid has a small ignition wire on a small pole, four heavier (10awg) wires (including a red one directly from my battery) on a larger pole, and a single black 10awg wire to the starter itself. When i jump these two large poles the starter cranks and wont stop till i remove the cables from the battery. When i replace the battery cables, it starts cranking again (half the time). Does the placement of these two groups of 10awg wires on the larger solonoid poles matter?

I have replaced this solonoid, a nearly destroyed neutral safety switch, and inspected and cleaned the ignition switch. Still no start from the key. Nothing but uncontrolled cranking when i jump the poles.

And so:

Its warming up outside and my mentors all seem to be sleeping, so im going to drop the starter (less than 3weeks old) to get it checked. While the starter is out im going to replace a burned out block heater (that lives in a frost plug behind the starter) and replace my coolant. I will be using a DCA 4 (ford) coolant. I guess the thermostat (residing on the bottom of my upper rad hose) can wait till i climb back on top of my motor.

 

So i ripped out her starter (12 minutes! My new record!) and the the clip to the Small black wire on her fell off... Ill replace that hoping its the problem... I suspect because the starter hung on in for a few minutes though that its not the real problem... and I field tested it with a fresh battery... the bendix engaged and the starter motor spun happily till i took the cables off... every thing worked fine... Im charging my now dead as a doornail batteries while I type this...

I do have a voltage tester that does AC/DC/Amperage... but I dont know really how to use it... I figure i should trace current from my hanging wires back... in an attempt to find whats fried... how should I do this...

Peers? Any input? Ill try with amperage thinking that any sign of life means its good? Till someone logs on... If this is a short somewhere, Im going to loose myself in wires for a decade or two without some guidance...

I sense that Im closing in on it...