I have a 2003 Dodge with 168,545 mi on it. it has a 5.9L Diesel. I'm having a hard time starting it when the tempture gets below 50 degrees. I can start it easy if i can plug in the block heater , if i don,t it will not start. I can't always plug it in when i'm out and away from home. I'm fixing to go out of town and need to find out some things. I have chacked the two selonde's to the intake manfold heater and i have 12 v on the battery side and not on the manfold side , when the key is turned on . I did check the power to them and i have 3.69 v when turned on. I don't know if it should be 3.69v or 12v. I would like to find out what other things to check out. Help
Billy

 

Sounds like a grid heater issue to me but i'm not to sure on how to tell you to go abbout checking them. If it were me I would wait till it was cold and then jump the solenoid for a few seconds then start it and see if it is any easier but that's probably not the correct way...

 

My truck started this issue about two weeks ago. It is hopefully injectors and should find out from Don M sometime today or tommorrow. But these trucks will start even without grid heaters well below 50 F. The conculsion I came to about starting after being plugged is that the starter can spin the engine faster getting rail pressure at a higher level. Time will tell for me.