JeepcoMJ Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 not an MJ but your advice might help get me home. I'm stuck in Iowa 2001 GMC savanna 3500 van 6.5 TD won't start. engine is chugging. -21 degrees here it's plugged in. anyways, let the glow plugs charge 4 or 5 times to ensure enough heat on the glow plugs. flip key to start the ignition. engine cranks SLOW like there's no battery charge. hook hi amp charger, no difference. replace battery, no difference. charge with tow truck. no difference. oil is maybe a quart low. at 265k miles it burns (typical 6.5) but I keep it topped up. it simply won't turn over fast enough to get it to even fire. I seriously doubt the lines are gelled, I put a bottle of HEET diesel in BEFORE I fueled up yesterday. currently at just under 1/4 tank of fuel. does anyone have any ideas? the tow guy said we basically need to get it in a heated shop to start it. oh, some specifics on the truck. it has 7 glow plugs of 8, 3 weeks old. one broke off in the head and my boss cannot justify $2000 to remove one glow plug on a tired motor. thanks in advance. Pat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aemsee Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 does that have dual batteries? one frozen, shorting out internally? how many amps is the starter drawing? maybe starter just took a crap Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
90eliminator Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 where in Iowa are you, My 6.5 froze up on me, turned out to be the fuel, so I dumped some power service 911 stuff in it, did a great job, also had it towed to a heated shop.... Maybe a meineke or a exhaust place would let you put it in overnight. My 6.5 currently is sitting in my driveway doing the same thing, she cranked slow and that was it, I have not done anything too it yet, but probably will have to wait till it heats up, hopefully this weekend...... But be careful, my comanche had a dead battery, so I put the charger on it overnight outside, and I blew the battery up, and I mean exploded it....sides, top battery acid all over the place...totally destroyed it.... Never had that happen before, If I had a garage I wouldnt care at all to drag it over here, but I let the wife convince me to buy a house with no garage...that was dumb......S Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeepcoMJ Posted January 16, 2009 Author Share Posted January 16, 2009 Coralville at the motel 6 right now. it does have dual batteries, I've no idea where the second one is, and no voltage meter to use to test it. the boss won't shell out the $$$ to put it in a garage to warm up...I just want to fricking go home. already cost me some weekend wheeling because the 87 won't be ready for a trail ride now. anyways, nothing is waiting overnight....if it doesn't run, he can come pick me up and the van can stay here. not my problem. hopefully heating it up with a torpedo heater will help :nuts: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geonovast Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 When'd you get stuck there? I drove through Coralville Tuesday night, roads got bad and ended up crashing in a hotel in Marion. (not literally) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeepcoMJ Posted January 16, 2009 Author Share Posted January 16, 2009 it failed out as of yesterday. I think more serious things are at play here. it's easily above zero here (not sure on exact temp), and it's been plugged in over 15 hours now. I don't think the block heater works, and I think the motor is @#$%ing toast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brdhntr Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 pick up 1 or 2 of the magnetic warmers. put it on the block for a while, and on the gas tank. if your block heater isn't working, it's not gonna help. from what you are describing, i would guess it is froze over and gelled up. the magnetic warmers are $20 on up depending on the size. if the boss won't pay, consider buying them for yourself for future use, they're great to have around. it would also get you home faster. if it were me, i'd be ticked at the boss. he needs to provide dependable transportation for you if it's a part of your job and he needs to realize he needs to spend the money to fix a bad situation. he sounds like a jerk. he needs to care about his employees more. :fs1: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeepcoMJ Posted January 16, 2009 Author Share Posted January 16, 2009 pick up 1 or 2 of the magnetic warmers. put it on the block for a while, and on the gas tank. if your block heater isn't working, it's not gonna help. from what you are describing, i would guess it is froze over and gelled up. the magnetic warmers are $20 on up depending on the size. if the boss won't pay, consider buying them for yourself for future use, they're great to have around. it would also get you home faster. if it were me, i'd be ticked at the boss. he needs to provide dependable transportation for you if it's a part of your job and he needs to realize he needs to spend the money to fix a bad situation. he sounds like a jerk. he needs to care about his employees more. :fs1: yup. thanks for the magnetic heater tip...I may be able to do that. he's not a jerk...and he's fixed the van every time I say there's something wrong with it, except replacing the batteries. last week when I told him they're junk. he'll pay for what we need, the problem is that both my partner and I are...well, broke lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bpm4x4 Posted January 17, 2009 Share Posted January 17, 2009 At work today we went through 6 cases of Penray Winter Thaw (similar to Power Service 911). Every truck we put it in had treated fuel in it. If you can get a torpedo heater on it and change the filters and add Power service 911 (or equivalent). Next, find another diesel truck (the bigger, the better) and jump off of it but hook up to your starter solenoid, not to your battery. If I had another reason to go to Coralville/IA City, I'd swing in and give you a hand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brdhntr Posted January 17, 2009 Share Posted January 17, 2009 understood. i know what it's like to be broke. well, cause i am broke! glad he's taking care of stuff for you. hope you get down the road. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DirtyComanche Posted January 17, 2009 Share Posted January 17, 2009 Diesels are a lot of fun in the cold... Anyways, I have a few ideas. The worst would be it was started cold previously, and now has spun bearings. With my dodge, and most diesels (especially with glow plugs), you can get them to 'light off' with very minimal pre-heating, just it takes about 2 minutes before you'll have any oil pressure. The result can be lots of spun bearings. And often it will just show up as too slow of crank to start, or no crank at all. Buddy of mine is a HD... When we had the last cold snap he was changing engines like crazy from people starting them without enough preheating. Most of the customers would phone up saying they though the starter was bad, or it cranked super slow... Otherwise, I'd say stupid electrical issue (ground?), or it is just too cold. Fuel gelling shouldn't be your issue - the slow crank is. And honestly, you guys must get crappy fuel for it to gel bad at that temperature. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Sam Posted January 17, 2009 Share Posted January 17, 2009 Do you have a fuel filter head that you can pull some fuel out of? If you can't get it out of the filter head it may be gelled in the lines and not able to flow to the IP. Does it have a in tank lift pump? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeepcoMJ Posted January 17, 2009 Author Share Posted January 17, 2009 mechanical block-mounted pump. it's all electrical related. after hooking it to a coworker's van (who my boss made drive 4.5 hours to jump) for 4 hours along with a battery charger and heating the block with a torpedo heater aimed at the grille, and dumping a half can of starter fluid in the intake, it finally started. this is a charge related issue...bastard isn't holding more than 12 volts and so it won't turn the motor over on it's own. needs the second battery replaced and at least one ground wire. the spun bearings are a good idea to think about. it's at jerry's automotive now...we managed to get it home. at least the MJ started right up... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WahooSteeler Posted January 17, 2009 Share Posted January 17, 2009 Pat, glad you finally made it home. Just to add my 2 cents worth for future reference, if you've got a "frozen" diesel, plugging in a block heater after the fact might get you started 1 out of 100 tries. When I ran a commercial rental fleet in Pittsburgh for 4+ years, it only took my first winter there to figure that out. Now, don't get me wrong, still plug it in because in my experience if you've got any chance of starting without some shop time, you need all the help you can get. The number one thing you can do is get a strong charge to BOTH batteries. As you ultimately determined, one battery apparently was shot. Even when you can get hooked up to both batteries, they've got to be able to charge for 20-30 minutes MINIMUM, preferably 45 mins.+, to get enough juice to turn the engine fast enough. If we couldn't a charge source to each battery, like out on the road etc., we'd hook the positive to one battery and negative to another and give it a good hour or two before trying to get a start. If that doesn't work and you can't get heat to the engine, you've got to change out the fuel filter if you want any chance of getting a start. Oh yeah, and keep the tank topped off or at least 1/2 full. When our trucks, or more precisely our customers had 1/4 tank or less when they shut down the night before, condensation occured and then gelling and frozen lines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aemsee Posted January 17, 2009 Share Posted January 17, 2009 does that have dual batteries? one frozen, shorting out internally? :thumbsup: :cheers: Just pattin' myself on the back Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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