seriously though

Truck is a 2003 Chevy Silverado 2500 HD Diesal 5spd or 6spd manual

truck will not start! cranks, turns over fine...does not fire...its getting fuel, he doesnt know how to check for spark

check engine light on

anyone know how to check codes...or any info?

 

bump for chad... he called at 5:15am and said he was stranded...

 

Did he get bad Diesel?

Is the "Water in Fuel" light on?

 

not sure...

 

sorry to hear about the stranding!

i'll try to help; i am no diesel mechanic, but the company i worked for had a few of them as shop trucks, and ive driven alot of them....

diesels are fairly simple animals; i am hoping that he was joking about checking for spark!!!!

if you have fuel and you have compression and the engine is turning over fast, it will run. you basically only need the proper fuel distribution and compression for it to run; spark is not in the equation!

the starting problem described above is typical in our older cummins turbo diesel (1997 model, 5 speed, about 200k miles). if it sits for a while, or especially on colder days, it will almost start and then it just cranks and cranks and cranks. there are a couple of fuel pumps in the line, and then of course the main fuel injection hi pressure pump/system (the basic heart of the diesel engine). whenever the cummins won't start, in our case, one needs to "reprime" the main injection pump. this is explained in the manual (is there a manual in the glove box, chad, for you to read?); there is an auxillary priming pump button on the block under the injection pump apparatus; it is impossible to see and hard to get to (climb up on the fender and lean into the engine). the book says to prime it like 8-10 times; this never works for us; it needs usually to be primed about 50-100 times, or until your thumb goes numb and feels like a piece of driftwood! after this procedure, one does the preheat cycle, applies 1/3 throttle, and cranks. the engine will start after a bit of cranking, but will run a bit rough and smoke like an M1 Abrahms tank in the beginning. after a while, it will settle down and run normally... this has happened too many times to count.....

i don't know if the repriming info above applies to the Izusu type diesel in the GM trucks, but the symptoms sound like it needs repriming.... of course, also, i am assuming that the truck has fuel in the tank! since it is a loaner vehicle, i would dump in a 5 gal can of fuel just to make sure that the gauge isn't reading wrong... (and most diesels need a special reprime of the system if run out of fuel)

good luck, mang!

todd

 

Perhaps this is part of the problem:

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<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">he doesnt know how to check for spark
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Seriously though, good luck getting that thing going.

Matt&lt;-- I own a Ford....

 

I'm not sure how much the diesel motors have changed, but when I used to drive an 84 Mercedes turbo diesel you would have to let the glow plugs warm up before trying to crank. If you didn't let that happen in cold weather it would never crank. In that car you would just hold the key in the igntion position for a few seconds until a light went out, then try and crank it.

 

I am assuming Chad *does* know how to operate a diesel, right?

 

the newer Izusu GM diesels have "fast" glowplugs; hardly any wait at all.....

the older cummins we have has the older style plugs where you have to wait a while for them to preheat and then crank....

todd

 

Too bad Andy's not there to help...

 

I hope this does not turn out to be a Deliverence kind of thing

Can Chad make a good pig noise?

 

Suxxors - I left a message for AllenP to check on here, not sure if he knows anything about the truck or not.

- Mark

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I hope this does not turn out to be a Deliverence kind of thing</TD></TR></TABLE>

He's in Alabama, not West Virginia......

 

I hope the part about spark is a joke. There is a check engine light. You can jumper this to read the MIL flashes without a scan tool.

Tool required: one paper clip. Don't get the paper clip around the wrong way otherwise a fuse will blow.

 

Damn. That's a neat trick.

 

I am a 24v Cummins owner and do not know much about the DuraMax. With Diesel it almost sounds like it is bad fuel. I am not sure how Chad checked but if it has fuel pressure perhaps a injection timing or pump issue.

I would think Chad would also know things to check and look for after driving David's 24v Cummins Daully all the time. I have never liked the DuraMax mainly b/c it is a DOHC V8 Turbo Diesel that has wayyyyyyy to many electronics and sensors to go bad and cause problems like at hand.

I say find someone that can check the code and go from there. Good luck Chad and let me know if I can do anything.

 

Does the truck have OnStar? If so call and see if they can tell you what the Check Engine light is for. I can look it up here at work if they can tell you what it is. Good luck!

 

Fortunately Chad is back up and running as of 7am, we're still not sure what exactly happened. This truck has 130+k miles on it and was quite reliable. I also expect (hope?) that bad fuel was a culprit.

I recommended to him that if he has a chance, get the fuel filter checked out. In the meantime, next fillup he's going to put some diesel fuel cleaner additive in...

Sorry Chad- I do feel bad about this, and talk about bad timing: nothing like breaking down at 3am

Best of luck, here's hoping for no more troubles!

 

Also, how does he know he is getting fuel? It's not like a gas motor with pressure release, the Duramax engines run something like 20,000 psi fuel pressure. Just wondering if that might actually be the problem.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> 2003 Chevy Silverado</TD></TR></TABLE>


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HOLY ****!!!!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by MaddMatt &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">He's in Alabama, not West Virginia......
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So the pig sound will have a bit more of a Southern drawl but the eyes will be a bit farther apart...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by MaddMatt &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">He's in Alabama, not West Virginia...... </TD></TR></TABLE>

You say tomato I say tomatoe

 

Chad needs to pick up some Diesel Kleen with (anti-gel). Last night here in Maryland I saw a low temp of 18 degrees. I went out and plugged the Cummins in.

 

A midwesterner poking fun at the south? That is pretty funny.

 

Glow plugs also go bad. I used to have a similar problem when mine got flaky, it wouldn't start in the morning, but would start later after the temperature warmed up.