Hello Everyone,

last night while driving home my EX became hung up in like 2nd or 3rd gear and wouldn't shift. I slowed and whe it dropped below 10mph or so, it suddenly shifted and then drove normally. This morning I went out to start her up and put the key in, waited for the glow plug light to go out then cranked her. There was a loud pop sound and she like exploded to a start.... different from the normal cranking to a start.

I began to drive down the road and about 2 miles from home, noticed that all the gauges went to zero, the abs light lit up, check engine light came on and the AC motor/electronics shut down. I started to turn around and when I was slowing to a stop she just died.

I couldn't get any cranking out of her, when I tried turning the key, the glow plug light would illuminate then go out and I would try to crank but it would just click click click..... like low battery.

What could that pop have been? battery blowing? ECM frying? and it had to be related to the tranny hanging up in 2nd gear last night. Any ideas? I towed the car home and its sitting in driveway now. Thanks for any advice you can give!

 

sounds like a dead alternator and dead battery to me.

 

hopefully pop wasn't FICM...

 

Thanks Ranger

 

Try searching for FICM in the 6.0 forum for more info. Hopefully the pop wasn't it frying.

Check your battery voltage. They are probably dead. If so get them charged and start the truck. Check your voltage while running. Batteries should hold at least 12 volts in them and it should be around 13.5 or so while running with headlights and fan and etc turned off. Less than that and you have a problem.

I tell everyone with a 6.0 they need a gauge that lets you check your ECT/EOT deltas... and if you go with something like the scangauge II you can monitor voltage at the same time. Its very important on the 6.0. Low voltage, regardless of the cause, will destroy the FICM and while its an easy repair its still $500 and a few days without your truck while its rebuilt.

 

I will look for one of those scangaugeII's how much are they...will they work on all cars and trucks? Thank you

 

they are $140 new, I found a used on on ebay for like $110. They will work on any OBDII car or truck, which is most anything after 96. But its designed to mount permanently so you can monitor your temperatures and basically every single other parameter that your ECU monitors. You can actually use it to measure the voltage the FICM sees, or boost pressure, or all sorts of other cool stuff. You have to program in the individual gauges using the scangauge website, but its not that hard, basically you enter the right code into the scangauge, which takes a few seconds, and then you have access to that gauge. you can also use some of the more expensive touchscreen monitors like the edge insight and stuff, which you can add exhaust temps to as well, but I didn't want to spend that much.