rollincoal01

Hey everyone, my buddy has a 93 CTD 250 that won't start without a little starting fluid. It all started tue. night. He called me and said it wouldn't start. Ran fine when he parked it, then wouldn't start like 1 hr. later. I told him to try pumping the manual lever about 20 times. He did and it started right up. He said the next morning it started, but it cranked just a little longer than normal. That evening he said it wouldn't start, even after pumping the manual lever. We started it with some starting fluid. I told him his lift pump was probably bad. So we put a holley blue pump on it the other day. Well same thing right after the lift pump install. After we started it with the starting fluid, we drove it for 5 miles to make sure no leaks etc....he shuts it off. Immediately goes to restart, and nothing won't start! I have no idea what it could be. It has the pump tweaked just a bit(No fuel screw turn, just starwheel,& AFC cone turned 90*), and it's straight piped. It has 120,000 on it. He bought it from a guy who owned a landscaping business, and it was used primarily to plow snow in the winter. Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to give all the info I could to get some help back. Any info is GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!
Thanks,
Tommy

apwatson50

Try holding the fuel peddle to the floor to start.

jogl

A few more ideas:

1) Bad fuel solenoid; there are some recent threads about diagnosing and dealing with this problem.

2) One of those fuel line leaks where air gets in but fuel does not leak out.

I'd check the solenoid first.

JP.

rollincoal01

Pedal position does nothing while cranking the truck. I don't believe air is an issue. I checked all the fuel lines before installing the holley blue pump. And also tried bleeding air from the lines while cranking and it's all fuel. Fuel solenoid? Excuse my ignorance on the old 12v's, cause I've never owned one. Where is this located?
Thanks,
Tommy

olddodgetrucks

holding petal gives more fuel,look on your sunvisor re cold start hold down petal .

BearKiller

My money is on it being the spade-terminals that connect to the fuel-shut-off solenoid, on the injection-pump.

These connections will get all loose and corroded.

The least little shake, such as the engine firing on ether, or things getting wiggled around while levering the pump, will wiggle the connection just enough to make contact.

I went through this, on a new-to-us truck, last winter.

After replacing the spade-terminals with ring-terminals, we still occasionally had the problem.

I finally traced the wire back to a bad connection at the harness/junction.

I cleaned up and re-worked that mess, and no more problem.

rollincoal01

What I meant was we tried the pedal method already. I didn't mean that I don't think it won't work. Sorry. I checked the connections on the shutoff solenoid. Is this what you guys are referring to as the Fuel Solenoid? Anyway the connections are good & clean. Once the truck fires on ether it runs fine, no stumbles, or dying, or anything. It is definately something fuel related. I just looked up Fuel Solenoid and found some posts that pretty much match the symptoms that this truck is doing. Thanks for the replies guys!!!
Thanks,
Tommy

wannadiesel

I like this one myself. Use a shop rag and an air hose to put a few psi in the fuel tank, the air leak will become a fuel leak that you can see.