OK they say the first cold weather is when you find the problems with a "new " used vehicle, well its happening to me.
Wednesday, 0430, truck has been plugged in for two hours, fires right up and I drive to work. Park it, and leave it sit unplugged in till 1330. She fires right up and I let her idle for 15 minutes, shut her down and go to shift debrief. Come out at 1420 and she will turn over but not fire.
Wound up cracking three injectors, and I have air in the lines. Bleed them and she fires up reluctantly and I get home. air temps were between 5 and 19 degrees...
Thursday, go out at 0300 and plug her in, at 0430 she fires right up. Get to work, park her and come out at 1200 and she fires up. Idle her for 20 minutes, shut her down.
1400 she turns over but wont fire.. bleed injectors again and she fires up. air temps between 3 and 20 degrees....
Checked all fuel line fittings and none are loose..
lift pump is building pressure when primer pump is pumped, fuel filter not clogged or she wouldn't run at all right?
fuel has anti-gel and Stadyne added....
I am stumped as to what the problem might be..
I have an under-sized battery in her( 645 cold cranking amps) but she will spin over with out starting and I am leaning toward a fuel problem more than anything.
What has me stumped is why it only manifests itself after sitting at an idle.
Went out at 0400 this morning, she hadn't been plugged in, air temp at 7 and she fired up......
any thoughts???????????

 

drain or change the fuel filter. it may have a little water in it. easy frist
Clark

 

Clark, that wouldnt cause the air in the lines tho would it?
I KNOW i am sucking air somewhere, but only after idling and only when the engine block is cold...water in the lines wouldnt be affected by the block temp wold they?

 

had a friend with a similar prob. long short the fuel filter had ruster out at wif in bottom of filter. soon as truck warmed up water would melt and not be sealing the leak in bottom of filter. presto air. wierd but cheap and quick(yea after alot of time pressure testing the lines)
Clark

 

Would NEVER had thought of something like that... I'll try it...

 

Reread your post.... ,mine is acting up when its COLD.. not when its warm....

 

thought you said after cold start and it idled for 10 or 15 min then you shut it off
Clark

 

OK... went out and started it, fired right up... shut her down and she wouldnt restart, barely turned over.
hooked the batt charger up and its showing a completly drained battery!
recharged it and started the truck no problem, hooked the charger up asap and its showing a drained batt again... wondering if the "air" in my lines was just the battery not being capable of turning the engine fast enough to pump fuel to the injectors...when I did crack them, the fuel sure wasnt jetting out, it sorta dribbled...
its a 595@ 0* battery, and I am thinking that after, starting it once, it didnt recharge from teh alt enough to be able to do the "wait to start" period, and still have enough left to turn the engine smartly enough to start it..
So in other words, it was sufficeint to start it once, but not twice without time to fully recharge off the altenator.

Does that sound probable or likely? Dont want to spend $$$ on a battery if that isnt a likelyhood or doesnt sound plausible........

on edit: I had battery and alt tested at the local Advance Auto a few weeks back and they were both good.

 

595 CCA definitely isnt enough. I just bought one, and had to get the "premium" line just to get 1000CCA. I wanted more, but that is all anyone has around here.

And why are you idling it at lunchtime? It wont build enough heat idling to do any good, not to mention the strain on the already marginal battery/ electrical system. Plus, you can get cylinder washdown, injector plugging, varnishing, etc, etc. I know, I know, big rig drivers from way back used to idle their trucks all night long- good for them. They wasted a lot of fuel. Those engines werent made for it, and neither are ours. I mean no offense, just repeating what I've heard and my personal observations.

Daniel

 

This is my setup and i think I could drive home on them almost, they are 900 or 1,000 each I don't remember right off hand. Sounds to me like you just don't have enough battery power. (Ignor the mess of wires I am in the process of installing an extra fuse box in the cab to run all this)

 

I would suspect a bad lift pump. The plastic fuel lines on the '93's rarely give any trouble.

That battery is laughably underpowered, no wonder it died. When I went to Advance Auto to get a battery, the computer there listed the same battery for our trucks as the gassers. That's probably how the wimpy thing wound up in there.

 

I normally dont, but those two days i sat in the truck to eat my lunch and thought it better to run it while listening to the radio rather than run it on teh battery....

 

Dave, If the lift pump were bad, would I still be able to feel pressure building on teh primer pump lever when I pump it? I thought of the lift pump, but eliminated it as a suspect when I could feel pressure building in teh line when I pumped it... I didnt crack the bleeder and check that way tho, maybe I should.

 

Even if it isn't the problem, get yourself a bigger battery, or two, or three.

I currently have three, yes three, group 31S batteries on my truck, one under the hood and two in the frame-mounted battery carrier.

I think they are something like 1100 CCA, give or take.

The most damaging thing for a starter is weak batteries.

 

I was suspecting it as a possible source of an air leak.