well, i just bought a 1992 W250 Cummins after crashing my old truck in the sig. only 112000 miles on it, no rust, very clean, and straight piped on my 2nd day of ownership. man, this thing has a very deep exhaust note compared to the other truck.

first night was a cold one, about -5*F and didnt have an extension cord at the time so i didnt plug it in. next morning, let the heaters cycle and the truck would barely turn over. my old truck, in the sig, would fire even if it was -30*F. no biggy to me, old versus new. so i took a look at the battery and was 4 years old. bought a new one and didnt plug the truck in that night either, cuz i have a new battery and was curious. no start again.

did a search on this website and needed use a multimeter to check which accessory was drawing the power. since i didnt have one, i was not able to find where the "leak" was.

well, for the past two nights when i shut off the motor i noticed the ring that lights up surrounding the ignition kept staying on. if i wiggle it, it will shut off. it possibly was drawing enough to weaken the battery in the cold weather. see what happens.

just giving you all a heads up to what my problem was. keep you posted.

Pat

 

There is a relay under the dash that controls the "halo ring" around the ignition switch. It looks like a tall, skinny flasher relay. Try unplugging it and see if that eliminates the problem.

When I was tracking down a current draw on my truck, we just disconnected the negative battery cable and hooked up a test light between the terminal and the body ground - if there is a current draw the test light will illuminate. Pull fuses until the light goes out and that will give you a good place to start. My draw ended up being the memory circuit of the stereo (that wasn't killing the battery, it just had a couple dead cells).

Oh, and if anyone needs to jump start a CTD from a "normal" vehicle, be prepared to have two sets of jumper cables and two donor vehicles.

 

I've jumped mine many times from my van with no troubles, but my cables are heavy duty.

 

Best bet for jumping one of our trucks it to hook up the cables and let the running rig charge the dead battery for several minutes if not longer. The longer you can let it charge the better. That will help in the starting process. As will using the largest guage (lower number) cables you can get your hands on. I have jumped semi trucks with the method in the past.

 

my key light was staying on when I first got my truck. The passengers door dome light pin was from dissuse staying slightly connected. It wasn't enough to make the dome light glow very bright, but it was making the key light constanly cycle.

I just sprayed some contact cleaner around the pin and worked it around by hand.

 

I've jumped my truck with my wife's hyundia and the cheapest cables I've ever seen. It only took about 5 min. to charge before she would crank over and start.

 

lol, usually letting it charge for 5-8 min and have the other person hold it at about 2000rpms while cranking shoul work fine.

jiMMy

 

I know my glove box light is always on. The box seems to warp a little just enough to make it go off and on at will, also check the under hood light.
I made a pair of jumper cables for my truck, they are 20 feet long and are made from #2 welding cable. I can start other diesels no problem and you should the way the little rice burners spin over when I hit them with almost 4000 amps. Check my gallery, see how I install a killer alternator to cure all charging problems. Jim.

 

Unfortunately, Lead-Acid batteries lose a lot of their cranking power when they're cold. Some brands are worse than others at this. A good rule of thumb is the heavier the battery is, the more lead in it and the better battery it is. Bigger is always better if you need to do cold weather starting. Make sure the terminals are CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN. Use one of those wire brush things to get off the grey/brown coating that gets on them. Also don't forget to check the other ends of the cables to make sure they're solidly connected. Don't rule out a dragging starter or a bad solenoid. A dragging starter will start just fine when you got good power in warm weather but won't crank at all in the cold.

A bad alternator diode can also cause a drain on the battery. The light in series test is a good one to make sure you don't have a constant drain. Anything less than 500 ma (1/2 amp) is probably less than the battery will self-discharge. Cold will kill them quicker than anything. I've had cars not even crank at night 0 deg. cold but fire right up the next day when it's 30 deg.

Edwin