A very important thing to check
before going any further is the engine oil level. If it was checked yesterday, check
it again. If it was checked an hour ago and you are sure it is good and
don’t think you need to check it, check it anyway. If there are no
engine leaks and no oil on the ground, check it anyway. If the gauge shows
oil pressure while cranking, check it anyway. Many times I have
had to diagnose a no start and found the only problem was a low oil level. If
there is oil on the tip of the stick there is probably enough to start but any
time it is any lower than that, could be an issue.
The DT466E HEUI engine requires oil to fire the injectors.
Remember
that the HEUI system requires engine oil to fire the injectors. Especially in
cold weather, a low oil level may not keep enough oil in the oil pan to supply
the system. If the oil level is unexpectedly low and there are no leaks, there
are two places it can go. The oil seal in the turbo may have failed. Take the
boot off the turbo outlet and check for oil there. If that is where the oil is
going and a significant amount has been lost, the air-to-air in front of the
radiator will need to be taken off and drained. If there is lots of oil in the
air-to-air and it gets to the engine the engine will burn it like fuel and
cause the engine to over rev, causing serious damage. The turbo could also be
leaking oil into the exhaust. You could take the exhaust pipe off the turbo but
if lots of oil is being lost it should be seen at exhaust system joints and the
exhaust pipe outlet.
If there is no oil coming from the turbo,
check the fuel in the tank. If it is black or dark grey in color and opaque,
injector oil seals have probably failed and the injectors will need to be
removed to replace them. (this last is for pre-2004 non EGR motors).
This
is a good place to caution against excessive use of ether to attempt to get an
engine running. A small amount of ether doesn’t hurt anything, and sometimes is
the best method to get an engine going without burning out the starter.
However, if the high pressure pump is not getting oil from its reservoir,
trying repeatedly to run the engine on ether will burn the high pressure pump
up. Ether has little diagnostic value for a diesel engine anyway; any engine
with adequate compression should run on ether.
Confirm that oil is getting to the high pressure pump reservoir.
Oil
in the high pressure reservoir can be confirmed by removing the oil temperature
sensor next to the high pressure pump. A pint or so of oil should drain out of
the sensor hole. If not, the engine oil pump is not delivering oil or there is
a bad leak inside the front cover. Both of these problems are beyond the scope
of this manual.
If
the above items check out, low fuel pressure should be suspected. Follow Diagnostic Routine 1: Fuel system check.
If
fuel pressure is to spec, follow Diagnostic
Routine 2: ICP check, even if no active or previously active codes are set
for that system.
DT466E EGR engines start hard in cold weather.
It
is worth noting here that the EGR engines are notorious hard starters in cold
weather. If not equipped with the optional intake grid heater, they will
typically start very hard or not at all much below freezing, even with a block heater
plugged in. A retrofit grid heater is available for engines not originally
equipped with one, but they are kind of expensive. However, it is the only way
the engine will reliably start in cold weather.
No comments:
Post a Comment