Hard Starting on '01

[Snowdog]

For the last week, I've been experiencing hard starting on my '01 ETH. I've searched previous posts and remember seeing something about the fuel shutoff solenoid relay, but can't find the post again. The hard starting is most prevalent after the truck has sat overnight. When starting it up a within a couple hours of shutting it off, it seems to fire up just fine. The truck runs fine as well, just hard starting. I took it to the dealer the other day, but they said they couldn't reproduce the problem. This morning it took a good 10 seconds of cranking and a bit of pedal to get it fired up. Could someone suggest where I begin looking to solve this? Thanks.

 

[GTX]

Had the same problem with my 99 after the dealer put a new lift pump on. The new lift pump was bad. The vp44 was pulling fuel through the lift pump since it was not working. It took almost 45 seconds of cranking and giving it half throttle for the truck to start after sitting for about 6 hours. New lift pump fixed the hard starting problem and after about two weeks, a new vp44 was put in cause the old one was hurt from pulling all the fuel by itself. Truck started stumbling.



Not trying to tell you your vp44 is hurt or getting hurt, just my experience.

 

[Snowdog]

Hey GTX: Are there syptoms of a bad lift pump while driving? The reason I ask is my truck seems to run perfectly normal while driving. The only problem I've seen is at start up time. Thanks

 

[Tom W]

Check for leaking injector line. Look for very small bubbles at the fitting and the smell of fuel. Loosen line, turn injector tube, line it up straight, and retorque to proper spec.

Tom

 

[LSMITH]

Snowdog, if the liftpump is bad you will have a really hard time telling when you are driving. If it is bad you are probably down on power a little bit, but again it is hard to tell. The ONLY way to know for sure if the liftpump is bad is to pressure test it WHILE you are driving. Of course if you put the tester on at idle and it shows zero pressure you don't need to drive it, but lots of liftpumps that show decent pressure at idle do not make pressure with a load on the engine at higher RPM. Hope this helps.

 

[GTX]

LSMITH is right. There isn't a way to tell when driving unless you had a dyno run when it was new and dyno'ed it now to compare to. You need to pressure test it. Mine had about 9psi when driving but would drop to 3-2 when I stepped on it. Now I have 13 at 70 mph and 10 when I step on it. This is measured pre-filter.

Good Luck

 

[Snowdog]

Hard Starting on '01 Cured!

Well, thanks to the TDR, the hard starting on my 2001 Ram appears cured. After reading about faulty fuel shutoff solenoid relays, I looked this up in my factory service manual. I couldn't find reference to a fuel shutoff solenoid relay, but I did find reference to the Automatic Shutdown Relay, located in the Power Distribution Center. Figuring this was the correct relay, I bought this relay for $10 from the local Dodge dealer (DC Part Number 4671168) and popped it in. The Cummins buzzin' half dozen now fires right up, even though it's been below 0 deg. in the mornings lately. My TDR membership appears to have been paid for already.