Doubletrouble

Happy New Year everyone!

Came across this article and it demonstrates how important it is to know your trucks load capacity and how to distribute the weight . https://www.thedrive.com/news/broken-ram-3500-dually-shows-a-camper-can-still-overload-a-big-truck According to the article the camper was 5000lbs dry weight. Plus gear and such they estimated total payload at around 6500lbs. That's a lot of weight in the bed. Plus while looking at the pics, a lot of that weight seems to be behind the rear axle. It's terrible what happened to this guy's truck, mopar is refusing to cover it under warranty (a $17,000 repair). Can't say I blame them though. Know how to load tour truck properly. Use the scales at a truck stop and be safe!

The bikes have been officially put into winter storage. Gas tanks full, covers on and in the shed out if the weather. I have seen some people out on there bikes if the Temps come up enough for their liking. Myself, I won't bring the bike out once they throw salt on the roads. I will not allow that salt or the liquid, metal eating death juice to get on the motorcycles. I would rather miss out on some riding in the early winter to know I am preserving my toys the best I can. I should however remove the batteries from both and store them in the basement, have not done this yet. Battery tenders would also be a good idea.

I think you guys have it covered. I did mine a couple years ago. I have yet to put the fuse in the blue wire. I have the inline fuse. Just haven't done it yet.

@Blue-Top Steering, I was looking at your site for buddy. He has a 1969 Dodge charger. I didnt see anything for that car. Do you offer anything or maybe have him send it to you for rebuild? Thanks

@Great work!, I am planning on mounting it on the steering column in front of the cluster. Haven't done any test fit yet to see if it blocks anything. It says you can dim it when your lights are on also.

Thanks @Threadzy, appreciate it.

I have to brag a minute, my daughter has been my wrenching buddy since she was in diapers. She is 26 now and still likes to help wrench on things. She does most of her own maintenance and repairs on her own vehicles and motorcycle. She is truly a daddy's girl. Lol She will get me tools or in this case gauges for Christmas or my birthday always. She is awesome. I say that without trying to take away from my other daughter or my sons but my youngest has always been my little pupil in the garage.

My daughter bought me diesel truck gauges for Christmas! She found a 3 in 1 gauge from gloshift that has an analog needle to show boost and an LCD display that shows fuel pressure and egt. Pretty slick little unit, all 3 in one gauge pod. Even comes with the pod to install it. I only need to buy the boost bolt, snubber and the tap and die kit to drill the exhaust manifold for the egt probe. My questions are: Do I only need a snubber or do I also need the needle valve? Where is the best place to drill fir the egt probe? See pic of the gauge below. The pic shows egt and temp in the LCD but mine has the fuel pressure and egt's.

And to add to what @wil440 said, the tax money they raise there and here in the U.S most likely doesn't even go towards any sort of environmental cause. At least a good part of it won't. It's used to line pockets of a select few. Do I believe that global warming is an issue? Yes, but not to the degree they say it is.

Heck, they're a 1/4 of the way there now in some places. Lol I've been offered 12k for mine the way it sets which is 4k more than I paid. I won't sell, I love the truck.

I also saw this on tiktok. Makes sense, the batteries get to cold to take a charge. Apparently once plugged into the charging station the will have to go through a warm up cycle to get the battery warm enough to charge which ultimately add much more time to the charging process if I understand it correctly. The whole time your car has no heat going so if there is no place warm for the driver to go they sit in the car and freeze.

I certainly did create my own problem this time. Like stated before, I feel like a complete idiot. This will not stop me from turning this into a learning experience. Diesel engines are astounding to me and real power houses when properly cared for but they don't like the cold. Fuel being to cold and / or gelling is a problem, even intake air Temps being to low have proven to have some negative effects on the diesel engine. I can even notice the way the engine runs better once she is completely warmed up and the fuel has warmed as well. I have learned many things on this site and with my own experiences owning my Dodge / Cummins. This was another lesson to be learned.......don't forget to treat untreated fuel if the tempeture suddenly drops! On a side note, my leg hurts now from kicking myself

All very good information to take into consideration both when changing filters and when dealing with a freeze issue. I will keep this info stored away in my memory banks (sometimes they freeze to) for future reference. In hind sight, and I REALLY hate to admit to this but, this freeze up was mainly my fault. A while back I had some fuel delivered to the house, I have a tank in the driveway with a hand pump. We usually use it for tractors but with the fuel prices lately I was able to buy in bulk with a discount so I purchased 180 gallons at about $.75 below most fuel stations. My stupidity comes in like this, the fuel was delivered over 6 weeks ago when it was still fairly warm. My mistake was that I neglected to add any cold weather additives to the tank. I didn't even think about it until the truck first started and then died shortly after. This has now been my first freeze up ever after driving commercial vehicles (all diesel) for the past 27 years. I feel like a complete idiot. Rest assured I have learned a valuable lesson from this and it will NEVER happen again.

What Ibmobile said. I installed the breaker. 150a between the alt B+ terminal and the passenger side battery.

Just pickin @JAG1. Glad to see W-T still pops in from time to time and insightful as always.

Awww @Tractorman and @W-T have secrets!

Thanks to all that have helped! I finally got her fired up and running. W-T, that was a great testing scenario! Unfortunately I did not read this until after I was finished. BTW- I do have the lift pump on a relay to avoid pulling the amps required through the ecm. To sum it up, I got her to build pressure so fired her up. The fuel pressure would slowly tapped off to near 0, I shut it down. Reprimed with a key cycle and restarted. Did this about 4 times and she started holding enough pressure to safely idle, around 10psi. As it idled things began to warm up and the fuel pressure was rising as well. Once fully warmed the fuel pressure was back to 18psi at idle. If I would rap on it she did not drop below 15psi. I let her idle in the driveway for a good 45 minutes to an hour before a test drive around the block (about 4 miles) then let her idle some more while putting tools away. I believe there may have been some gel or icing somewhere in the lines or pump. At this point there should be plenty of treatment in the tank to avoid a repeat. I poured 64 Oz. Of power service 911 red bottle in there to begin the thawing process. Then 32oz of the white bottle power service to prevent gelling. Should be plenty! So this is my Christmas miracle I suppose. Thank you all again for your ideas and advise. I greatly appreciate it!

Merry Christmas everyone!

I would love to! Wish ya'll weren't so far away, it would be a great time I think. Today I'm going to open a fuel line in a spot or two to see if I have flow. What concerns me is I'm not showing any fuel pressure at the test port on the vp. Also going to check for power to the pump to be sure she's getting juice. May have to line up a couple tables for a wind break and ppint the salamander under there also. We have family coming over today so my truck time will be limited. Just drives me crazy knowing she's out there but won't start. Don't know why but it irritates my soil. Lol

@wil440, yes the grids are working fine. I was messing with it yesterday and got it to shiw fuel pressure so I would bump the starter and just let the pump run for 20 seconds to try and bleed it through hoping to pull the now treated fuel through the lift pump. It was showing pressure at the test port on the vp44. Then I tried to start it. She fired and ran for about 30 seconds and died again, list fuel pressure. I'm hoping this didnt simehow take out the lift pump. Its a raptor 150 and has less than 10k miles on it. I'll mess with it more today, the outside temp is a bit better. It's 12°F now. Yesterday it was still in the low single digits. Also had the battery charger on it all night at 6amps, maybe that'll help. I don't know. In all my years of truck driving this is the first time I've had anything freeze up in the fuel line like this.

I haven't heard from Mike. A heat gun might be a better option. Be easier to control where the heat goes that way. If I can get her fired up and stay running to warm everything I have some fuel treatment to prevent it from happening again.

The filter housing and LP are in the stock locations. I belive the small factory line from the tank to the LP could be the issue. I may have gotten a little air in the filter housing when I removed the top but minimal. I'm gonna go back out and try to get some heat under the truck with a salamander heater to warm the lines. It still windy so I don't know how that'll work.

So, weather sucks. It's like 4°F here with wind chills of -25. Truck won't start. I though it was gelled up. Poured power service in the tank, went to pour some in the filter housing and the fuel in there is fine. I reinstalled the filter top. Still no start. Put a fuel pressure test gauge on it and no fuel pressure. truck was plugged in, ran fine before thos cold weather, plenty of fuel pressure before also. Is it possible the lift pump froze?

Glad your genny fired up for you @Andyba20. Luckily I haven't had to fire mine yet. The snow has stopped but the wind is still a big issue. That to is supposed to slow down some by tomorrow. As present the temp is -1 and wind chills are around -25 to -30.