2nd Gen Non-Engine/Transmission Cold Start issues

[FTotts]

Gents,

My son drives a 2001 Dodge with a Cummins. There are occasions when he needs to start the thing in the cold weather without being able to plug it in the night before. Is there a fuel heater in these trucks and if not can one be installed? Anyone have any other ideas on how to hepl the problem? As it is when it does finally start it runs rough as hell and blows out a BUNCH of white smoke for sometimes as long as five minutes.

Thanks

Fred T

P. S. Admin I think thismay be in the wrong place please feel free to move it to its correct location. Thanks again

 

[Midnite]

There's heaters from Espar and Webasto that heat the coolant and greatly helps cold weather starting (my 2000 won't start without being plugged in below about 15 deg. F). If the worry is fuel gelling, then I'd just recommend a good fuel additive.

 

[JR]

Rough running with excessive white smoke could be a bad injector/s or injection pump. Anytime Ive ever seen white smoke coming from a diesel it was due to unburned fuel. Does his truck have any codes? How cold of weather are you talking?

Do the grid heaters appear to be working properly?

FYI there is a fuel heater in the factory fuel filter housing.

 

[GSchlegel]

He may need to cycle the grid heaters twice before trying to start it.

 

[mwilson]

Rough running with excessive white smoke could be a bad injector/s or injection pump. Anytime Ive ever seen white smoke coming from a diesel it was due to unburned fuel. Does his truck have any codes? How cold of weather are you talking?

Do the grid heaters appear to be working properly?

FYI there is a fuel heater in the factory fuel filter housing.

Could it be going into the automatic three cylinder idle???



Mike.

 

[JR]

Could it be going into the automatic three cylinder idle???



Mike.

Thats one of the reasons Im wondering how cold of temps hes in, cold is -30 to some and +30 for others :-laf

When he says its blowing excessive white smoke there could be other issue, unless its just condensate from the exhaust hes seeing.

 

[Vaughn MacKenzie]

Yes FTrotts how cold are we talking?? Sounds like maybe the grid heaters are not working in which case it can get hard to start in the 20s and colder.

Midnite, something isn't right if you truck struggles to start below 15F. Spent a few days in the mountains of Idaho with my '98. 5 and had to fire up every morning around 0F unplugged, started fine, at 5200 feet elevation. This was with fuel bought locally (much milder climate) but with additive. The wait was pretty long for the grid heaters (20 seconds), the initial crank it would fire immediately then die, hit the starter again and it would fire up and keep going. Sputtered and smoked a bit then smoothed out after a few seconds. Smoke cleared pretty fast (much unlike my12-valves in the cold). Injectors are Edge Jammers, stage I.

 

[HBarlow]

The trucks will start in extreme cold with only the grid heater if used properly. I once spent an extremely cold night in a motel in western Nebraska with an overnight low of -20°. I cycled the grid heater twice and gritted my teeth.

My then '01 24 valve with around 300k on the odometer grunted and rolled over a little slower than normal but fired, ran for awhile in the three cylinder mode, rattled, shook, and smoked but after a couple of minutes smoothed out and ran fine. That faithful old truck never stranded me.

Later that morning as I crossed the Rockies the sun was out but the temp dropped to -28°. I saw dozens of big trucks sitting on the sides of the highway with gelled fuel. The jug of Power Service from Wal-Mart kept me going.

 

[HHhuntitall]

It's not uncommon for any high compression diesel engine to not fire on all cylinders on initial start in cold weather. The pistons have shrunk quite a bit due to the temperature, and thus lost compression... . White smoke is unburnt fuel. If extremely cold, it can miss on several pistons until it gets enough compression or heat to ignite the fuel, which almost instantly heats the piston, increasing compression and making it start to fire, too. Once all have compression, it will run fine. It all depends on how cold you are trying to start it. If it's below certain temps, Cummins recommends a lower viscosity oil and winter blend fuels..... If it's only occasionally, I wouldn't think it'd be much of a problem... .



As mentioned above, there is a fuel heater located in the fuel canister.