Well, not really sure what is going on here, but this problem began at the very end of winter/spring last year. When it dropped below about 50 at night my truck was really hard to start. If i plugged in the block heater for about 30 minutes or so it woudl fire right up no problem. So I just got in the habit of plugging it in for those last few weeks of coldweather and forgot about the problem. Well fall is here and we are having our first "cold" mornings below 50 and once again truck won't fire unless it is plugged in first. Seems like if it is over 50 or so in the morning she fires right up, but any colder and no start. We were in Billings, MT about a month ago and it hit 10 degrees one morning and I plugged her in for about 20 minutes and she fired right up.

I assume that the problem is my air intake grid heaters, but how do I go about testing them. I did a thorough search of the archives looking for a procedure and haven't found much on testing. What I did find was more often than not, this problem is related to bad injectors and not the heaters. Would injectors still be the problem if the block heater gets me going and I am not making any white smoke on start up? Thanks in advance!

 

some guys seem to think mine wouldnt start warm cold or hot but if it takes a lot of cranking to get it started i would say injectors especially since i just noticed you had a quad on there. check your rail pressure when cranking should be at least 5k when cranking

 

Well after further investigation, it appears that the grid heaters are functioning correctly. Checked voltage at relays and the heaters themselves and all were good. Looks like I have to face the inevitable....new injectors. Add me to the list of 2003 trucks with injector failure.

Does anyone know if they will get worse or if they will just stay as is? Considering this issue began last winter, and doesn't seem to have worsened any over the past year, is it likely it will remain the same?

The reason I ask is, I like everyone else, am not made of money, and would really prefer to wait until after the new year to get this taken care of, if it isn't going to risk any further damage/catastropic failure. If that is a possibility, than I guess I probably need to just go ahead and plunk down the 2k and get it fixed.

Thanks

 

mine always got worse, you could do a flow test and just replace the worst ones first could just be one or two that are bad enough