Trucks dying

[Nate]

So today at work I headed over to vehicle maint. to get a truck looked at (no headlights). Truck is a 1990 Dodge with a Cummins.



Well I make it about 1/4 mile and the darn thing looses power and dies. I can't fire it up.



Well happenes that another guy I work with was heading back to the shop... with another 1990 Cummins. I hopped it and we got about 1/8 mile down, and his truck did the same darn thing!



Bled the lines, were fine. Ended up firing it up with either and alot of cranking.

We found that the grid heaters weren't working, so no risk of blow up from them.



I was thinking the fuel froze up, but we have 2 more of these trucks, and they were fine.



Any ideas?

 

[DVolk]

Id say water in the fuel , or the fuel is geling , or just simple a clogged fuel filter

 

[JLEONARD]

I don't know what the problem was, but I'm not letting you in my truck Nate. :-laf

 

[Madurski]

Did you drain the fuel filter to make sure there was no water or other contamination in there?

 

[Nate]

Nope... I didn't touch them actually since I'm not supposed to work on them. The vehicle maint. guys came over.



Was funny because I argued with the dude for a good 10 mins about them not having glow plugs.



After a while he realized I knew what I was talking about.



He pulls out the ether and I was like and told him NO!



That's when I suggested to disco the grid heater... and we found the wires were melted and it wasn't even working.

 

[dpuckett]

got power to the shut off solenoid?



DP

 

[Doc Holiday]

Uhhh mine did the same thing it would run fine and then just die highway backroads it didn't matter. Anyway it wound up being the fuel pickup in the tank the line had a hole in it and when the fuel level got low or sloshed it sucked air and shut it down. I thought my pump was bad so I replaced it first then we put in the pickup @ $350.