Good morning, I dicovered this year that my block heater is not working, and yes I have 120 AC with a good extension cord. Thinking it may be the cord on the truck I purchased a new one. I found where the connector goes into the block behind the turbo, but does anybody have an easy way to reach it? I couldn't even fit any kind of wrench down there to loosen the nut? ALso when I checked the continuity on the cord with my ohm meter, it was open between all the terminals, so I'm assumin the cord is damaged somewhere?

Thanks!!

 

either the cord or the heater element inside the block.

if you can remove the cord and check the cord seperatly you'll get you're answer. check the heater element too.

 

Don't take out the heater right away. The most typical place it looses connectivity seems to be the cord itself, below the radiator. This is where mine was chafed through. Fixed it and everything works fine. The heater itself could burn out too, but that is less common.

 

The block heater looks like this:



You dont need a wrench to loosen the cord. Turn the knurled nut and the cord should come off. From there, use a multimeter and measure the resistance across the parallel legs of the heater. If you measure resistance across the heater, the cord is your problem.

My guess is that the cord is damaged. When its left hanging, the wires inside the cord get stressed and some of them can break off.

 

I don't know that knurled nut was more than hand tight, but feeling amitious I cut the cord inside the engine compartmant. The remaining cord and plug that I cut off tests open on my multimeter, I tested the ends of the remaining wire going to the heater and they seemed OK, tonigh I'll try soldering my new plug on and se what happens. I think I still might have some sort of a uel issue as when it is cod (less than 20 F) I have to go thru severak wait to start cycles and it puts out a huge cloud of unburned fuel. Could that be the grid heaters not coming on? It would seem like the fuel pressure is ok- I don't have a gauge...

 

Yes, could be the grid heaters not coming on or even something else. Plug the block heater in for a few hours and feel around for some heat.

You dont have a fuel pressure guage? You are playing with fire and it could cost your $1000+ $....not a very good idea.