Hello everyone...need some help. Having what I thought was the typical hard starting in the winter. It was going sub zero for a week or so here. Had the typical hard starts with lots of white smoke at startup. A few times while it was running shortly after startup it would act like it's not getting fuel. I give it gas and nothing happens. Usually when it would start it would die shortly after the high idle kicks in. Or 1-2 minutes after driving it. I did find that my block and heater hose heaters were not always coming on. My house has GFI outlets and they were tripping from time to time when I would plug them in. I have pretty much fixed that issue. I have replaced the GPR with a Western snowplow one I found on another diesel site that is stronger than the stock unit. I changed the gas station I was getting my gas at, and am adding the PS diesel kleen in the white bottle. I am getting ok fuel pressure if I look on my gauge on the fuel bowl. In addition to this my water pump has started weeping. It is warming up here so I may be able to do a little work on it, or take it to a shop, but looking for a direction at what to look at. Today it is back into the 30's and snow is melting, but it still doesn't want to start. I have drain the batteries down a few times, and it is currently on the charger. Any ideas or at least things I can have the shop check in case they aren't super familiar with the 7.3's? I'd rather not spend money to have them swap things out to tray and see if it starts. Thanks in advance....

 

did you check the GPR? Just check voltage on both sides of the Gpr, look to see if it comes on

 

My first guess would be weak batteries. Not many will survive mutiple drain downs with out failing for good.

 

I replaced the glow plug relay with another one. Western part number is 56131K. The batteries might be a bit week, but after charging the are cranking ok. They have been draining down on me after cranking it though. I suspect they are original. But it is still dying after the truck is started am eith driving it or reving the motor.

 

Could be a weak alt. as well as the batteries. What happens when it dies? What does the dash lights and gauges do? Does it sputter and die or just quit running?

 

It's not electrical, it seems more fuel related. After it dies it will cranks for a while before the batteries act weak. If it does start when it starts to die it seems that it is not getting fuel. If will start losing rpm and not respong to getting more gas. A few times it has done this while I was driving and I was able to keep going and after a minute of acting up it drove fine until it was shut down. Also I premptively replaced the CPS last summer with a gray one. Also noted is that last year I had issues where it was running like **** and ended up that I blew my fuse for the fuel pump.

 

Next time it quits, you need to open the fuel bowl and see if you have fuel.

 

When was the last time ou changed fuel filters?

 

Humor me and check your oil level. Mine was pretty low and acted identically to yours.

 

Cracked it open yesterday and looked at the fuel bowl. It was full of fuel and didn't appear to be gelled from the descriptions I have heard. Changed the fuel filter about 5000 miles ago. I am due for an oil change...I'll go check it to see where I am at.



It was pretty low...I have some dripping in now and will see if that helps...if that's it I am going to shoot myself in the head. :P FYI using Rottella T synthetic.

 

Yeah, it's a simple one but you read about so many things that can affect it you don't trace it totally back to the amount of oil to fill the reservoir to pump through the heads... Hopefully that's it. Now why was my oil low ??? Hmmm...

 

So far so good...it's been nice knowing everyone. :P You would think with 16 quarts of oil they would be a little more tolerant to being down a little. I guess with the weather being so cold it focused my attention to the fuel/gp/gpr. Still have to look at the waterpump but with the break in the weather I'll do that in my driveway. Wish I would have done it a few months ago when I had drained the coolant. How much will I need to drain to change the pump?