M925A2 Cold Start Test and Result, -11F (Michigan 1/6/14), Cummins 8.3L

[Jbulach]

on the older pre cup engines like the 7.3 and 6.2 the glow plugs can light off the charge at the wrong time and turn the intake into a grenade. How ever the more likely problem is blowing out the precups with or with out the glow plugs working, I have seen this on the m973 susv's . I know I have used a lot of starting fluid in the past I only caution one to use it sparingly

Yep, confirmed no resistance on the injectors before squirting...

 

[adamsoffroadperformance]

After the replacement of the rubber lines and a screw on fuel filter and figuring out that the shutoff lever on the engine is sticky in te cold my 8.3 fires right up now. found the trick to mine is as I'm cranking I pull the manual fuel shut off out a pinch and shove it back in. only in cold weather does it stick. so by moving the shutoff lever the cable must drag the lever enough it will trip it start position. once the engine is warm I don't need to do it anymore, it'll start right up anytime after that. And anyone complaining that they don't want to drive there truck because the heaters are sub par well all I can say time to maintenance your junk because mine will cook you out of the cab and mine even has a soft top. I did find that different blower motors do work differently though mine would barely blow any air and upon messing with the parts truck sitting here the fan on it was like a turbo compared to mine. I swapped the fans and now mine blows out the vents like mad. I compared the fan cage too but they were the same.

 

[WYomer]

Motor is fine once its going.

Christmas night I had to get to a friends for dinner and was going through 4-5' snow drifts for about 11 miles. Shut it down and had dinner/drinks/deserts and fired it up 4 hours later.

Only let it idle about 15minutes and the engine temp was barely registering and the tranny temp wasnt registering at all. It was -18F our and wind chill said FEELs kike -29F. When I shifted it puked about 1gallon of tranny fluid out the dipstick, it was acting sluggish too. Didnt know it though. So I got about 200 yards down the drive and SMOKE! Shut down and grabbed the extingusisher...no flames. But I puked another 1.5 gallons out. Made a quick check and got it back to the house. I had fluid and after about a 30 minute check and refill I started it again. Let it idle 45m and did two short test drives....no more issues.

Stopped every couple miles and checked fluids until I got home....all fine. Next day I went all over it and figure I had two issues: Tranny not warm enough...now I always make sure it registeres at the 100F mark and it does that eventually even at -20F, and possibly ice in my intake vent port.

Also had an iceball on my air dryer vent that made my heart pump....went to the 150PSI mark and I shut down. Knocked the ice off and vented it....ok after that.

I camp/haul/recover with my M923A2 in the mountains of Wyoming. My truck is too tall to fit in my shop so I took it down to the heated ambulance bays and dethawed her there for a few hours. No problems after that but I have some services to do now.

During out arctic blast many of us were snowed in for days at a time and I was the only one able to move. So I burned through 160 gallons of Diesel in 5 days. Over all not fun...but I made $20 for an airport run LOL