Is my grid heater dying?

[Sycostang67]

When my truck is plugged in and has sat all weekend, it will fire right up.  I went to leave work today, the wts light ran for a normal amount of time but the truck fired for a second and died.  It did that 3 times, the 4th time it fired up and ran a tad rough for a moment and then smoothed right out.  I figured if I was losing fuel prime it would do that all the time, especially when sitting for extended periods.  

[Tractorman]

Did you observe the normal voltage drop while the "wait to start" light was on? 

 

I don't know what your temperatures were where you live in Kuna, Idaho were today, but here, near Baker City, the high was only 26 F.

 

- John

[Sycostang67]

No, I was standing outside the truck reaching in to start it so I didn’t see the gauge.  I’ll check it out tomorrow.   

[01_Cummins_4x4]

Check the push on electrical connectors on your grid heater relays. I accidentally bumped one of mine once and unplugged it when working under the hood. 

[Mopar1973Man]

Grid heaters will not cause stalling. 

 

This morning Beast was started with no block heater and no waiting for the light about 26*F outside. I just hit the key. The engine started and missed, studdered and smoked white till the cylinder temps rose. Then smoothed out instantly. Ran fine. No stall.

 

Air in the fuel will cause a stall on start up. 

[Sycostang67]

It didn’t so much as stall as I let go of the key as soon as I heard the first sound of combustion and it wasn’t ready to go out on its own yet.   It started the first try today as I made sure to hold the key a little longer until it was practically running.  There was no voltage drop though, initially or even after it was running as I know the heater continues to cycle until certain parameters are met.  

[Tractorman]

It would be easy to check for battery voltage at the two large wire connections on the grid heater.  If there is no voltage present, then the two fusible links may have failed, OR maybe you disconnected the driver side positive battery cable and forgot to reconnect the two leads to the intake heater?  I know I wouldn't do anything like that...,

 

- John

Edited December 12, 2024 by Tractorman

[Royal Squire]

Sometimes starter can be lazy and doesn’t spin fast enough. 

[Doubletrouble]

 I would start with the grid heater electrical. Check the connections, make sure they're clean and tight, check for voltage as well. Like @Tractorman said, fusable links could have failed or maybe the relays, solenoids? Easy enough to track it down I would think.

[Sycostang67]

I checked the connections on the heater and everything is tight.  I did pick up some new relays as they weren’t terribly expensive.  Took me a minute to find the ones on the truck.  I’ve had this thing almost 10 years and never noticed them before.  I’m gonna have to remove my intake tube to swap them out though.   My dark horse boots are a huge pain to remove and install, more so when they are cold.  I’ll wait for a nicer day and then drive a bit to warm things up and hopefully not have to cuss at the truck too much. 

[Tractorman]

Using a test lamp, did you check all the places that should have power?  I would do some testing before replacing parts.

 

- John

 

[Sycostang67]

Not yet, but I will when I get the tube removed.  Thanks for the diagram, I was also wondering where the fusible links were so that’s quite helpful. 

[Tractorman]

The battery referenced in the diagram is the driver side battery.

 

Let us know what you find.

 

- John

Edited December 17, 2024 by Tractorman

[Doubletrouble]

 @Sycostang67, did you ever get this issue sorted out? 

 This happens all to often. Someone will post a problem, other members get involved to help solve said problem but then there is no report of the actual cause or repair. 

 If you could take a minute to let us know what you found, if you got her fixed and what it took to fix it that'd be great. Thank you.

[Sycostang67]

Haven’t gotten to it just yet, the truck still starts which hasn’t helped to light a fire under my butt yet, lol.  I am planning on working on it today though.  Got some friends coming over and we are replacing the control arms, track bar, steering damper and the sway bar bushings/end links.  I figured I’d pull the intake tube and check the relays while I’m at it.   

[Doubletrouble]

 Gotcha, I wasn't trying to sound any sort of way, I hope I didn't come across like that.

 I know there has been many times someone had a similar problem that I was dealing with and never reported back with the fix.

 Good luck! Sounds like you have some work ahead of you. 

[Sycostang67]

No worries, I totally understood where you were coming from.  I’ve come across plenty of posts like that where someone was trying to sort a problem like mine and there was no resolution.   
 

We got everything done today, did have to sawzall one of my alignment bolts out due to it seizing in the bushing.  Thankfully they are stocked at most parts stores.  As for my grid heater, found power to the relays but not the heater.  I swapped in the new relays and I think it’s working now.  I am once again seeing the random voltage drop on the battery gauge after starting the truck.   I can also hear the relays clicking in accordance with the voltage drop.   

[Doubletrouble]

 Great! Glad you got it fixed. And thanks for posting up the end results.

 My grid heater went bad a couple years ago, relays were good had power to the grids but they didn't do a thing. Replaced the grid heater and all has been good since then.

[Tractorman]

On 1/25/2025 at 7:27 AM, Sycostang67 said:

we are replacing the control arms,

 

Just curious, are you replacing the original OEM style, and what are you replacing them with?

 

I just replaced uppers and lowers last week (395,000 on OEM arms).  I replaced with OEM style complete arm assemblies.  I put the old ones in a vise and one by one slipped a large pry bar into each of the holes to see how much flexing was going on.  They were all tight, so I didn't expect to see much performance difference with the new ones.  However, I was wrong, the new ones performed much better.

 

Before I started the repair, I did notice on one of the lower bushings that one end of the outer steel cage was no longer pressed tight into the control arm.  This is what triggered the idea of replacing all of the control arms.

 

Using the same caster adjustment that I had previously used, I set the caster to maximum on the right control arm and then I set the caster to just slightly less than maximum on the left control arm.  I did this cross caster adjustment to accommodate for road crown.  It turned out great.

 

Just did a 500 mile road trip and between @Mace's  power steering pump mod and the new control arms, the truck handles excellent.  Very stable, tracks straight, and tracks in and out of curves effortlessly.

 

- John

Edited Sunday at 03:36 PM by Tractorman

[Sycostang67]

I got a set of OEM style control arms from TRQ.   My truck still drove fine, but I could hear something knocking around under the front when driving.  I couldn’t feel anything loose though.   I figured the bushings were all 24 years old with 263k miles so they were probably due, same as the sway bar bushings.   I was told my track bar had a tiny bit of play and I knew my damper was leaking but I had replaced those parts before and used the lifetime warranty to get new ones.   It goes in for an alignment on Tuesday, I got the cams out of whack from having to cut the one bolt.  The truck still drives straight but my steering is crooked.