-27° C yesterday morning, and -28° C this morning. Without the wind. Both my diesels are dead, even after being plugged in. I hate winter....

 

Yesterday morning we weren't at home so the truck wasn't plugged in. The forecast was -18° over night and it got to -27°. Was pretty sure it was gelled up so I got some fuel de-icer, got a very long extension cord from the hotel staff, plugged in for an hour or so, and fired up alright. This morning, after being plugged in for hours, I can't seem to crank enough until I need to wait for the batteries to charge... Ugh..

 

My 2003 Jetta TDI has similar issues. Poured a little bit of de icer in that too just in case. Have to wait til the truck gets fired up to move the charger over to the car. Fun Christmas morning.

 

I get fuel from the most reputable place around, and I'm sure they run winter fuel, I just don't know what strength. Anybody else on here get temps this cold? We are in an extreme cold warning right now. Still currently -27° C (-17° F). Luckily it's not too windy, only feels like a -40° wind chill lol. (FYI, -40°C = -40°F)

 

Merry Christmas. Stay warm.

 

 

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One down, one to go...

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Sorry to hear that, that is part of the reason I like my accord, starts every time. I had same problem with my truck few years back with good fuel and extra additive for antigell and it still was milky in glass jar so I didn't even bother trying to start it, had that happen before and I just felt like I was raping the truck. Times like that if you know you'll need to drive the truck around here i know of some that put kerosene in ahead of time.

I know last winter I remember seeing temperatures down to -35*F in New Meadows, ID. Never had any issues with fuel or starting one bit. This year I've seen as low as -10*F already and expecting colder to come soon. Typically I don't use my block heater at all. Most of the places where I go don't have power for a block heater. This has never stopped my truck from starting even after parked in a field for over 8 hours at -30*F.

 

The biggest thing is to have good strong batteries, good main cables and terminals and always parked the truck with charged batteries. Way too many go after buying huge 1,000 CCA batteries but have crappy terminals and main cable are rotten to the core. So its just as important to ensure the cable and terminals are in good shape. Just for information purpose, I'm only running 850 CCA Walmart batteries. 

 

Now like last winter I was helping a friend in New Meadows which is not exactly the brightest crayon in the box. He was all on top of making sure all the diesel vehicles had 911 Power Service and Cetane booster. The only problem is there is no product that I know of that will deal with large amount of water or in this case ICE.

 

 

Yeap his 2001 Dodge Ram blew the FASS fuel pump fuse. Why? The pump was full of ice and locked the pump motor. His small tractor would not start? Why? The fuel filter was a block of ICE and so was the bottom inch of the tank. No fuel would flow. So as long as you don't have water or ice issues you should be good. 

 

Edited December 25, 20177 yr by Mopar1973Man

Part of the reason why I went to group 31's. Couple -40*f days in a row resulted in a hard to start truck.  Cycle the key 3 times then crank

My batteries and connections and cables are great. Tons of cranking before I killed the batteries. I'm thinking it must be gelled or frozen, but I've never seen the water in fuel light go on. Could be my pre filter before the walbro I suppose. I can't remember if I out a water/fuel separator in or just a regular filter cartridge.

I would blame the fuel before anything else.  I would guess the station just wasn't on top of it.  It happens

Simple question do you see fuel pressure? If not then the system is gelled or frozen. 

42 minutes ago, Me78569 said:

Part of the reason why I went to group 31's. Couple -40*f days in a row resulted in a hard to start truck.  Cycle the key 3 times then crank

 

I've never cycled mine more than once, but the 3rd gen keeps it on longer as it gets colder. Is the 2nd gen the same way?

 

I also figure that the cranking speed is just as, if not more, important that warm air. If 3 cycles zaps the batteries and you lose 100 rpm on cranking it might not fire regardless of intake temp. 

 

Just a thought. 

 

2 hours ago, kzimmer said:

-27° C yesterday morning, and -28° C this morning. Without the wind. Both my diesels are dead, even after being plugged in. I hate winter....

 

Yesterday morning we weren't at home so the truck wasn't plugged in. The forecast was -18° over night and it got to -27°. Was pretty sure it was gelled up so I got some fuel de-icer, got a very long extension cord from the hotel staff, plugged in for an hour or so, and fired up alright. This morning, after being plugged in for hours, I can't seem to crank enough until I need to wait for the batteries to charge... Ugh..

 

My 2003 Jetta TDI has similar issues. Poured a little bit of de icer in that too just in case. Have to wait til the truck gets fired up to move the charger over to the car. Fun Christmas morning.

 

I get fuel from the most reputable place around, and I'm sure they run winter fuel, I just don't know what strength. Anybody else on here get temps this cold? We are in an extreme cold warning right now. Still currently -27° C (-17° F). Luckily it's not too windy, only feels like a -40° wind chill lol. (FYI, -40°C = -40°F)

 

Merry Christmas. Stay warm.

 

 

 

That's not all that cold, so with proper fuel and good batteries you should be fine. 

 

What are you using for a de-icer? Gelling and Ice are very different things. Most de-ice additive contain alcohol, which will emulsify the water and send it thru your fuel system since the filter cannot separate it. Alcohol additives should never be used with diesel. 

 

 

36 minutes ago, AH64ID said:

That's not all that cold, so with proper fuel and good batteries you should be fine.

 

36 minutes ago, AH64ID said:

I've never cycled mine more than once, but the 3rd gen keeps it on longer as it gets colder. Is the 2nd gen the same way?

 

Yes, for the most part, the colder the detected temperature the longer it will hold the grid heaters. Very rarely do I cycle 2 times. I don't want to waste too much power heating the grid heaters. 195 Amps (both elements) for ~15 to 20 seconds is quite a lot power usage. 

 

39 minutes ago, AH64ID said:

Gelling and Ice are very different things.

 

Like I point out above. Ice is a bigger issue if there is lot of it. The only way to get around that is have the truck towed to a heated shop to thaw out and then have the fuel drained out and replaced with dry fuel. Antigel is another weird one too. For people in Biofuel states still have issues with biofuel separating and then solidifying in the bottom. To my knowledge, there isn't any product for that issues either. 

My truck has always been a little harder to start when cold.  If it's sub zero I cycle 2x sub -20*f 3x

Just now, Me78569 said:

My truck has always been a little harder to start when cold.  If it's sub zero I cycle 2x sub -20*f 3x

 

Shower head injectors don't atomize very well cold. 

1 hour ago, Me78569 said:

I would blame the fuel before anything else.  I would guess the station just wasn't on top of it.  It happens

 

I agree, definitely the easiest answer.

 

1 hour ago, Mopar1973Man said:

Simple question do you see fuel pressure? If not then the system is gelled or frozen. 

 

To be perfectly honest I didn't check, I have the quad out for battery boosting, and that's my only sensor.

 

1 hour ago, AH64ID said:

What are you using for a de-icer? Gelling and Ice are very different things. Most de-ice additive contain alcohol, which will emulsify the water and send it thru your fuel system since the filter cannot separate it. Alcohol additives should never be used with diesel. 

 

I dumped in a bottle of diesel fuel de-icer / de-gel / water removal stuff. I forget the brand.

 

So... Still not firing. I pulled both my filters, no gelling or freezing. Made sure I had fuel coming into factory fuel filter housing when pump runs. Cracked #3,4,5 injector lines, got fuel. 

 

Hate to say it boys, but I'm leaning towards the 365 bar pop pressure contributing to this one. I definitely noticed harder cold starts when it wasn't this cold, and the temperature dived very quickly recently. Unless I lost my vp44 last night, which I highly doubt.

 

Guess I know what I'm doing this weekend, hah.

 

 

8 minutes ago, kzimmer said:

Hate to say it boys, but I'm leaning towards the 365 bar pop pressure contributing to this one. I definitely noticed harder cold starts when it wasn't this cold, and the temperature dived very quickly recently. Unless I lost my vp44 last night, which I highly doubt.

 

With the higher pop pressure I'm sure its retarding the timing more because takes longer to reach pop pressure now. 

It might be.  Even with stock injectors I followed the same cycling the grids at given temps. 

 

My 7 x .012 330 bar start easier than my 7 x .009 at stock bar.  It might be at higher than x bar starting gets harder, but I am not seeing yet.  I will be curious about 350 bar.

I would bet the higher the bar the easier the starting as the fuel is atomized better and that means more surface area for ignition, but maybe the retarded time of injection is too much? 

 

Thou at cranking rpms each degree takes a long, relatively, time to occur. 

 

 

1 hour ago, AH64ID said:

Thou at cranking rpms each degree takes a long, relatively, time to occur.

 

Guessing? How fast would you say maybe 100-150 RPM cranking speed? Then you are attempting to compress cold air heated by the grid heaters. Then fire a shot of diesel fuel at 340-360 bar which will come later (how much later? unknown.) I know cold start wise the ECM wants to crank up timing but the modulated lift pump pressure keeps that from happening. Now that brings up a question? What is all your cranking fuel pressures? Might be pushing the timing up too much? Educated guess or trying to think outside the box.

Edited December 26, 20177 yr by Mopar1973Man

Wasn’t there a TSB that disables the lift pump during VP cranking? 

 

Either way, at such low injector flow even 1-2 psi is plenty of flow for VP inlet to get full fuel. 

 

I thought cranking was 300+ rpms. 

 

I should play with it on my truck. Right now my single event tume uses a pilot for cranking :-) 

1 minute ago, AH64ID said:

Wasn’t there a TSB that disables the lift pump during VP cranking? 

 

No, there is just a modulated 50% duty cycle during cranking to reduce the lift pump pressure to prevent over advancement. Minimum cranking pressure is 7 PSI. Maximum cranking pressure is maybe 14-15 PSI. I know 12 PSI is safe. 

 

3 minutes ago, AH64ID said:

I thought cranking was 300+ rpms. 

 

Wasn't sure what cranking speed was... but thanks... 

 

3 minutes ago, AH64ID said:

 

I should play with it on my truck. Right now my single event tume uses a pilot for cranking :-)

 

Might be interesting... 

Yall can have all that cold weather and white stuff.  I'll stay down here where it's warm lol 

I just did some reading on TSB 18-015-00. It sounds like it dropped “key on” voltage to 50% and then applied no voltage during cranking. This was to help fix a long crank issue, especially with #1 and/or cold weather. 

 

@Mopar1973Man, are you tracking something different for that TSB? 

 

I wonder how that relates to an aftermarket pump that uses the OEM circuit to control a really and not a pump. A relay will close on 1/2 voltage and give full voltage to the pump. 

When I had my 7x.014's set at 340 bar, cold starting definitely improved. However, it was never this cold. The extreme cold may have different effects, possibly even related to fuel viscosity.

 

So around 5pm I got fed up. No ether in the garage. But I had some wd40. Now before I get lit on fire here, wd40 is a lot less violent than ether. I've also never used any kind of starting aid on this truck. Never needed it (another reason why I think it's directly related to pop pressuere).

 

I removed the rubber hump hose from the intake elbow. Turned the key on first to let the grid heaters run so they wouldn't ignite the wd40. Gave two very small shots, and it woke up like it was summer. Frustrating day. But lessons learned.

 

Fyi it's -28 c and going down to -31 tonight. Gross. Got the remote start remote sitting beside my night stand. The wife's not going to like this... Haha.

Edited December 26, 20177 yr by kzimmer