Archived block heater popping gfi

[CEpp]

home most of the day... . went for a 2 hrs trip... . came home and plugged truck in for the night... . 7 degrees tonight. . wife wanted to go out for dinner... so unplugged and went to dinner. came home. . plugged truck back in and pop... looked at the cord, which is about 3 months old and no signs of tears, or anything. checked the end with a ohm meter. . do u have to check from both flat blades? whats the reading i need... i cant get the cord to short on the meter... and still cant get the truck plugged in without popping the breaker.



ive changed extension cords.

last wekk replaced a burnt outlet in the gfi...



please help. . dont like leaving the truck unplugged in this weather.

 

[Pawpaw]

The most likely culpret is dirt & water on the plug. It could also be the recepticle on the extension cord. Heck, it could even be moisture at the outlet you have the extension cord plugged into.



The GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter) trips when it detects any current flow between the hot wire (one of the blades) and ground.



Did you try a another extension cord? In all probability, there is nothing terribly wrong, just a little moisture.



Bob

 

[RAJohnson]

GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter) detect a inballance of current between the neutral and the hot. If you have a multi meter touch both flat blades of your trucks plug when you are on the ohms scale. You should see some where around 750 ohms. If you show a open or see nothing at all your heater is bad. Then check from each flat blade to the center blade (ground) you should see nothing or open, if you show any thing here your heater is shorted out. And this would pop your GFCI. Sounds to me like you have a bad heater. Or shorted cord on your truck.

 

[CEpp]

showing resistance from flat blade and ground on both sides... going to go look for heater today... 7 degrees last night and going to be 12 tonight. getting fixed today reguardless...

 

[Hoefler]

Does your cord have the light in the female end that indicates you have power?? That is a LED from the hot to the ground, and it could trip it if the GFIC is a little sensitive.

 

[Dieselnut59]

I had to have a GFI outlet to pass inspection on my new shop. As soon as I got it inspected that POS came out and a regular 20 amp outlet went in. I hate those things! They are another "idiot proof" requirement of our lovely federal government which constantly gets into our personal lives. Replace the outlet with a standard duplex one and you will not have any more problems.

 

[Joe Mc]

I've had GFCIs do this before and it ended up being the GFCI that was bad. However this case reads to be the heater based on resistance from ground to flat blades. Hope you can fins a block heater on a Sunday.

 

[DocRhoads]

GFI and engine heaters

:-{} I had the cord go bad and was not using a GFI, Mylittle girl got a really bad poke while trying to open the door. My cord had a bare spot and had sent 120 volts into the truck she became the ground (as she was standing in snow). Now I use a GFI, cuase I dont want to have anybody get hurt again. It is just not worth hurting any body.



Now im having problems with the Block heater again and a popping GFI but I know it is the Block Heater. I popped the (non GFI) 20 amp breaker in the garage. Going to install a auto eject plug and get rid of the loose plug hanging from the grill.



Does anybody know who has the best price on block heaters for a 93 DCTD

 

[JZellers]

I had this happen on one of my 2nd gens and it was the heating element - it had a small pinhole that was letting coolant into the element. GFCI's are a good thing in this case as I found out. I first thought the GFCI breaker might have been weak so I plugged it into another circuit. Within a couple seconds, antifreeze was shooting out from under the radiator cap. Good thing I was there to pull the plug as fast as possible...

 

[bighammer]

I had a new GFI in our garage that would pop when I tried to run a saw. I replaced it with another one and all is well. Maybe plug in a similar load into the same outlet to see if the GFI is faulty.

 

[JDarr]

eliminate the GFI receptacle and install a GFI breaker normally the breakers hold better than the plug . A GFCI device works by detecting a small unbalanced load between the grounded conductor ( nuetral conductor ) and the current carring condutor which would be the hot

 

[RAJohnson]

99% of the time if a GFCI is tripping it is for a reason. The other 1% there bad

 

[DavidMartin]

I had a similar problem and switched to A GFI Breaker in the panel, this was better, but it still would trip at times. Last winter I put a small amount of dielectric grease on the plug blades and in the cover cap (on the truck). I have had no problems since unless one of the kids tries to plug it in covered with snow or something. Try it, it's cheaper than a new heater. Good Luck.

Dave