bad cranking abilities in cold weather

[jaynes]

When it gets really cold (like lower teens and below) my starter grinds the first time you activate it. It grinds on the flywheel i'm assuming. Then the next time you hit it, it'll catch and crank. when it's REALLY cold, then it does the above, but when it catches it'll only turn the engine over a turn or two then kick out half way and grind some more. This gets very frustrating. I don't know what is wrong. Something with my starter? Bad solenoid and plunger??



This morning it didn't do that. Just typical cold diesel behavior... turned over for about 4 seconds, fired a cylinder, got caught on a compression stroke, turned over a couple more times then crawled to life... . there was so much smoke I couldn't see the car next to mine!!! that was neat... hehehe Oo.

The grid heaters cycles preheat, but no post heat... crazy



Any idea?! THanks!!!



jaynes

 

[jrjuday]

Jaynes, Don't feel like the Lone Ranger. When I started my truck after work tonite it was 10 degrees, and the old girl wasn't happy, but after about three revolutions she took off. Big white nasty cloud. Think I need to check out my cables, etc. cause it used to crank faster at those temps. If your starter is failing to engage in flywheel or kicking out after engaging, I would suspect problems inside the starter/solenoid. Think I've seen some threads about the contacts getting burned and causing these problems.

 

[jaynes]

I already did a search, but maybe I didn't type the right words. I'll try that again! Thanks for the advice, I'll look into it when it gets alittle warmer this weekend.

 

[Madurski]

Let us know what you find because mine is doing the same thing :-(

 

[Greenleaf]

Take the ice cream maker in off the front porch when the ambient temps reach 40°F or below. That otta have you cranking once again.



Scott

 

[JLEONARD]

How's your battery and connections? That's gotta be the first check. If ok, then maybe the starter contacts, or maybe a bad starter. Had a ford whose started acted up and it was a very worn bushing on the nose of the starter.

A battery that is just starting (pun intended) to get weak will drive you nuts. You need a lot of power to spin a diesel over fast enough to start.

Hope this helps.

Jay

 

[jaynes]

Take the ice cream maker in off the front porch when the ambient temps reach 40°F or below. That otta have you cranking once again.

What????

Hehehehehe



The battery is very strong. When the starter catches, it turns over very nicely at a good clip. I think I might look into a rebuild with a new plunger, contacts and brushes. That might be part of the problem, if not the whole. Sound like a good idea?



jaynes

 

[tugboatphil]

Back to what JLeonard said. I had a tractor that wouldn't start. I had a new battery and cleaned the clamps real good and thought it was somewhere else. Several months later, I found a new ground cable in the garage and figured I'd put ti on just because the old one looked pretty bad.



Got the old cable off and even though the insulation wasn't broken noticeably, the innards had corroded. Cranked the tractor and she fired the first time.

 

[DKarvwnaris]

If its only doing this when cold, are you plugging the engine heater in? Do you have a magnetic oil pan heater stuck on the base? If not, start using them, BOTH.

It sounds like you have a bad spot starting on the flywheel or flexplate ring gear. It is most likely not bad enough yet for it to bother starting when the engine is warm and easily cranks over. When you have an ice cold engine, you can't expect it to be happy about being woken up.

The starters gear may not be engaging all the way, but from the description you gave of it turning over half way and then jumping out, it is more likely a bad spot on the flywheel/flexplate, probably both if you're continuing to keep starting it from day to day after hearing the noise.

Get it into a shop if you can't do the repair yourself before it costs you more money than now.

THe batteries may be loosing their life, but tasking them with starting a cold unheated engine will drag them further into the ground.

 

[jaynes]

I don't have anywhere to plug it in at. As for the magnetic oil pan heater, don't have one of those. Maybe I should invest in one. Except I have no money, hehe. I was wondering about a bad spot being worn on the flywheel myself just the other day. But if there was a bad spot and the engine shut down, landing that spot on the starter, wouldn't it grind even if the engine was warm? It seems that worn teeth would have the same affect in warm weather as in cold weather. All my cables are fine, I checked them. Batter is great. Funny, this morning it was 6 degrees, turned over just fine and lit right up without a complaint. Usually it does what I described before. Maybe it likes me now??



jaynes

 

[DKarvwnaris]

I'd find someway to plug it in, even if I had to offer a neighbor a few bucks a month to run an extension cord to it. Hopefully you have some means to deal with this issue. The cold weather starts without block heaters (at the least) and oil pan heaters is only shortening the life of your engine.

If you can't get the truck plugged in at night, at least wait until the temp gauge moves before you touch the accelerator, a piston failure or cracked head or head gasket can result otherwise.

While a bad spot on the flywheel may intermittently show for a while, it will only become worse when the starter is cold and bandix has trouble extending all the way out. It is only made worse with the extra resistance of an unheated engine that is filled with oil as thick as gear oil due to the cold.

The flywheel most likely stopped in a good spot last time you shut it off, that's most likely why it cranked over without issue recently. There are two or three spots on a flywheel that an engine will normally stop at. Usually, there is one dominant spot of these that be the worn area the starter is grumbling against. I doubt your problem has gone away,the engine just rested in a good spot the previous night

 

[JLEONARD]

If you can't get the truck plugged in at night, at least wait until the temp gauge moves before you touch the accelerator, a piston failure or cracked head or head gasket can result otherwise.

Sorry, I'm not ready to buy that blanket statement. I don't believe there is any thruth to it. While I believe in taking it easy, real easy, until there is a little temp build up, no way have I or would I ever wait that long before driving my truck.

Normally I have the truck plugged in so when I leave for work it's a little warm, but on those zero days on the weekends or leaving work to go home I fire up and let it idle long enough for me to fasten my seatbelt, then I'm under way... with limited boost (under 10) until I get some temp on. Within about 4 minutes I'm on the expressway doing 60.

Jay

 

[BJMarshall]

I'm with you Jay. We have some generators here with 6bt's on them. They don't have any heaters on them at all and they fire up and go to full power within about 5 seconds of a power outage. The only type of protection I see on them is that they won't start until they have oil pressure. They will spin over until they hit 5psi on the oil pressure then they light off and almost immediately get hit with a load.

 

[DKarvwnaris]

I'm with you Jay. We have some generators here with 6bt's on them. They don't have any heaters on them at all and they fire up and go to full power within about 5 seconds of a power outage. The only type of protection I see on them is that they won't start until they have oil pressure. They will spin over until they hit 5psi on the oil pressure then they light off and almost immediately get hit with a load.

Not only do they have oil protection circuits to insure they are primed with oil prior to starting, they are not expected to run as long as a truck's engine under stop and go driving. They are not run up to temp several times a day only to be shut down shortly after and then be nearly frozen again overnight, only to be started the same way the following morning. Most are torn down at a set number of hours. This is a completely different environment than a automotive application. Just because the engine will jump to life in seconds and run DOES NOT mean its good for it. Most personal vehicle's are expected to last longer than a generator which is maintained by some one else's money than an individual who has limited resources to afford preventative tear down's at set hour meter limits. Most vehicle owners can't afford much more than oil changes and fuel or at least don't want to pay out anything more.

When's the last time you found an hour meter in a motor vehicle? If you figure 100,000 miles for the average truck, which is very conservative, and a life average of 40 miles per hour for most commuters, that's over 2500 hours of stop and go intermittent use. When a Generator hits those numbers, it has been torn down and inspected numerous times, especially in hospital applications. Generator's are run a few times a month for maintenance cycles for a set period time, then they wait in standby the rest of the time. NOT THE SAME.



Jaynes truck has a signature posted odometer of over 200,000 miles. That's 5,000 hours on average. Being a farm truck, I bet its more. My ranch trucks idled around the fields at less than 10 mph daily pulling feed and materials.



Looks like his old horse would appreciate a blanket at night to me.

 

[tugboatphil]

Within about 4  minutes I'm on the expressway doing 60. [/QUOTE]



Jay, is that zero to 60 in 4 minutes with 15. 6 rwhp??

 

[BJMarshall]

Not only do they have oil protection circuits to insure they are primed with oil prior to starting, they are not expected to run as long as a truck's engine under stop and go driving. They are not run up to temp several times a day only to be shut down shortly after and then be nearly frozen again overnight, only to be started the same way the following morning. Most are torn down at a set number of hours. This is a completely different environment than a automotive application. Just because the engine will jump to life in seconds and run DOES NOT mean its good for it. Most personal vehicle's are expected to last longer than a generator which is maintained by some one else's money than an individual who has limited resources to afford preventative tear down's at set hour meter limits. Most vehicle owners can't afford much more than oil changes and fuel or at least don't want to pay out anything more.

When's the last time you found an hour meter in a motor vehicle? If you figure 100,000 miles for the average truck, which is very conservative, and a life average of 40 miles per hour for most commuters, that's over 2500 hours of stop and go intermittent use. When a Generator hits those numbers, it has been torn down and inspected numerous times, especially in hospital applications. Generator's are run a few times a month for maintenance cycles for a set period time, then they wait in standby the rest of the time. NOT THE SAME.



Jaynes truck has a signature posted odometer of over 200,000 miles. That's 5,000 hours on average. Being a farm truck, I bet its more. My ranch trucks idled around the fields at less than 10 mph daily pulling feed and materials.



Looks like his old horse would appreciate a blanket at night to me.

Never said the operating conditions were the same nor did I say that this was good for the engine. We are a hospital and our generators run until there is a problem with the oil sample or the generator itself. We've got 3 big Cats and two of them have over 15,000 hours on them. They get run a minimum of 10 hours a month, and during the recent hurricane when we were without power, they ran for 8 days straight. The ones with 6bs (we only have one with a 6bt) and the ones with 4b's get run a minimum of 10 hours a month as well. There is no set time for them to be torn down and inspected. They get a sample pulled twice a year. I don't think we have one on campus that has less than 2500, but I know 2 of the 4bs have over 6000 hours on them. Most of them have been in service since the late eighties and have never been overhauled.

Running one of these engines to full power right after startup may not be ideal operating conditions for long engine life, but there are lots and lots of industrial applications that do this and these engines perform well in these applications. They were designed to take it.

 

[DKarvwnaris]

Forgot to mention that my dodge has a high idle switch that I turn after about 30 seconds of idling or the smoke clears up. (whichever is longer)

It bumps the RPM's up to 900-1000 or so. If its real cold, I turn the exhaust brake on to hold back some of the heat.

If I didn't have this devices on the truck, I would not touch the throttle until the windows were defrosting at least. Where you gonna go with 0 visiblity anyways? Since I have mine plugged in all the time, I rely on the temp gauge instead. Think about how cold the coolant is in the radiator when the thermostat starts to open up, that's a shock I doubt you'd enjoy either. The block is cast in case you forgot.

 

[ARhine]

could it be old grease buildup in the starter. Would get stiff when it is cold and affect the way the gear slides out. Maybe just take the starter appart and clean it up good.

 

[jaynes]

hehe, i like starting a good conversation! I ALWAYS wait until the oil pressure comes up before I hit the go pedal or drive it. I found the best way to warm up an engine is to put a load on it. It ain't gonna make any heat just sitting there sucking cold air and idling. So i just wait on oil pressure. The only way around here to run extension cord is through an open door. The windows in my apartment building have screens that cannot be easily removed (burglery protection). SOOOO... . trust me, if I could find an outlet, I would the poor old Beast plugged in every night! I can see in my head how thick the oil is, how much of a strain it is to start, but what can you do? I think i'm going to start by taking my starter apart... might wait till it grinds again, then quit, and take it off and feel to see if the flywheel is chipped or worn. I need to fabricate a high idle!!! AAANND! I need to fabricate my own preheat control that also works with the computer (with a manual switch for when it doesn't work right, which is all the time) Any ideas on the manual preheat?



jaynes

 

[DKarvwnaris]

hehe, i like starting a good conversation! I ALWAYS wait until the oil pressure comes up before I hit the go pedal or drive it. I found the best way to warm up an engine is to put a load on it. It ain't gonna make any heat just sitting there sucking cold air and idling. So i just wait on oil pressure. The only way around here to run extension cord is through an open door. The windows in my apartment building have screens that cannot be easily removed (burglery protection). SOOOO... . trust me, if I could find an outlet, I would the poor old Beast plugged in every night! I can see in my head how thick the oil is, how much of a strain it is to start, but what can you do? I think i'm going to start by taking my starter apart... might wait till it grinds again, then quit, and take it off and feel to see if the flywheel is chipped or worn. I need to fabricate a high idle!!! AAANND! I need to fabricate my own preheat control that also works with the computer (with a manual switch for when it doesn't work right, which is all the time) Any ideas on the manual preheat?

jaynes

Preheater is easy, install a indepent switched wire onto the relay terminals on the pre heaters solenoids. Make a sure you use an illuminated switch so you remember you have them on.

My '96 grids work flawlessly, but my old 90 and 93 trucks I used to have were intermittent at times. I eliminated bypased the computer on just about everything in the '90. (dash was salvaged out of an older dodge with a cabled speedo. It was a rough old ranch truck. The grid heaters worked off of a toggle on the dash with a idiot light that I installed in the dash next to the engine temp gauge. Worked good.



My '93 along with my current '96 will heat up in about 5 minutes on high idle with the exhaust brake on. Even in the dead of the winter, it is less than 10 minutes before my cab is thawing out.

If you haven't bought, designed, or otherwise equipped your truck with a grill blanket or radiator block out board, I'd suggest that as way to get your temps up faster. A simple piece of cardboard in front of the radiator is enough usually.

My truck has sat unplugged and still started, but its not pretty to hear it surging an struggling to even out at first. I'd hate to do it everyday to it in the winter.

I'm more attached to my truck than my house(which I own both outright), maybe you need to find a another apartment, or a drill bit for your exterior wall. :-laf