Many of us on here use Rotella. I use the Rotella T6, full synthetic.
2002 SD XLT getting hard to start
- Thread starter rocketdog
- Start date
Many of us on here use Rotella. I use the Rotella T6, full synthetic.
DaveBen
SDD Senior Member
YES! I used it for years. Now I use Rotella T syn oil.
Dave
Dave
rocketdog
SDD Junior Member
I am at my folks for Thanksgiving this morning and my dad and I checked the GPR. Just making sure this is correct.
On the side of the GPR with the boot on it, I had about 11 volts. 0 volts on the other side. Had my dad turn the key on. Heard the relay click. Still 0 volts on the normally open side of the relay so I'm assuming relay is bad. Correct?
My Stancor relay came Tuesday but I wanted to check the old one first just for the information. Sounds like replacing the relay is going to be the right thing to do. Still don't have a hole cleared out in my garage to get the truck in there, but that should happen this weekend. I just wanted to make sure my test and results were correct.
On the side of the GPR with the boot on it, I had about 11 volts. 0 volts on the other side. Had my dad turn the key on. Heard the relay click. Still 0 volts on the normally open side of the relay so I'm assuming relay is bad. Correct?
My Stancor relay came Tuesday but I wanted to check the old one first just for the information. Sounds like replacing the relay is going to be the right thing to do. Still don't have a hole cleared out in my garage to get the truck in there, but that should happen this weekend. I just wanted to make sure my test and results were correct.
Sounds bad to me. Yul know fer sure when you install the new one and test it. You should be seeing 12.? volts, key on.
Joe
yep.
Tail_Gunner
CRJ & ERJ A&P Mech.
rocketdog
SDD Junior Member
Finally got on this last night...
First off, big thanks to Big Joe and DaveBen for their insight on this.
Pulled the truck into the garage last night to get started on this. Goals for the evening:
1) Replace stock Glow Plug Relay with Stancor 586-902 relay
2) Replace fuel bowl drain valve O-rings.
3) Clean out fuel bowl and replace fuel filter
4) Change the oil
Note: When all this was said and done, it took me six hours to finish all this up. Plan
accordingly or break it up into smaller tasks. I am not a professional mechanic but have
raced circle track cars for 10 years, so I know a little about wrenching. The big
difference between working on race cars and street vehicles is that one of the primary
goals of race car design is ease of maintenance. Street vehicles are designed for
efficiency, economy, and squeezing a lot of "stuff" into limited space. Like I said, "BIG
difference".
First thing, unhooked batteries. Then started unhooking the GPR. The normally-hot
terminal twisted right out of the solenoid body as soon as I tried to unbolt it. The
underneath "contact side" of the post was burned and corroded so I am sure this was the
main problem. Removed the remaining wires and mounting nuts with no problems.
I had read somewhere among the 30+ posts I have seen about this procedure that it would be
a good idea to mount the new Stancor solenoid upright just like the stock one, so I fabbed
up a mount out of 16 gauge steel that would bolt up just like the old one. Primed and
painted the mount and moved on to #2 while the paint dried.
You could tell right away that it was good to have the GPR out of the way while removing
the fuel bowl drain valve because, as many people have noted, space is tight back there.
Two things saved me on this task:
1) I have a Stanley 3/8 ratchet that has a twist handle that spins the ratchet drive, so
once I adapted down from 3/8 to 1/4 and then put on the T20 bit, I barely had enough room
to get it all in there, but once I got the bit on the screws, I could just spin the handle
to loosen them enough to remove finish spinning them out with my fingers.
2) I have an old couch in my garage with big, fluffy cushions and I took one of them and
just laid it over the fender and part of the engine compartment so I could lie on my
stomach while doing this. There is no way I could have hung over the fender into the
engine compartment for as long as it took me to get this done.
Also, to anyone planning to replace these O-rings, consider unbolting the part mounted to
the firewall that has the red and green "vacuum lines" and some electrical wires running to
it (I don't even know what this thing is) and moving it out of the way while you're in
there. It's easy and gives you some more room to work. You'll be glad you did.
After about an hour, I had the drain valve out. I knew there was some "trick" to getting
the spool valve out of the valve body, but could not remember what it was and do not have
internet access down at my shop. I fiddled with it for about 20 minutes trying to get it
out and finally gave up. Here is a link to a very good write-up on how to do this but I did
not have the information last night. http://www.dieselorings.com/docs/FuelDrain.pdf The
top O-ring did not get replaced.
Otherwise, the reinstallation of the valve was just a reverse of the removal. Add one more
hour...
Task #3: Replace fuel filter. Sounds easy, right? As I said previously, I've had the
truck since 2008 and had never replaced it before. My guess is that it had NEVER been
changed. I am sure that Ford techs have some fancy socket to use that just spins the
filter cap right off. I don't and had to use a hammer and brass punch. Hitting the thing
as hard as I dared, finally got the cap broke loose enough to unscrew. I swear I think the
fuel bowl itself shifted positions while I was hammering on it, but, as of this morning, I
don't see any signs that anything got messed up. Took a ShopVac and sucked out all the
remaining fuel and gunk at the bottom of the bowl. Rinsed and repeated two more times with
clean diesel fuel. My new filter has a 3/4 inch "nut" molded into its cap, so
re-installation was a snap. Original bowl cap is in the trash.
Back to GPR reinstall...
As has been noted, the Stancor relay is considerably bigger than the stock unit. But I had
also read that there is plenty of slack in the GPR wires to reconnect to the larger relay.
Maybe so if you lay it on its side, but not so if you stand it upright. The yellow wires
bolted up just fine. After cutting away some factory electrical tape and pulling and
stretching, the hot cable was just barely long enough to go over the post. I got it on
there and bolted down but may have to revisit this situation to make sure there aren't
going to be problems. It was immediately obvious that the two coil energizing wires
weren't even close to going on their respective terminals. At this point, with some wiring
time ahead of me, I went ahead and put the oil drain pan under the truck and got the oil
draining out. Should be plenty of time for all the oil to finish dripping out of the
motor. Back to the GPR.
In retrospect, I would recommend extending those two wires before bolting the GPR back in.
After cutting off the factory eye terminals, there isn't much of a pigtail left to work
with and it would have been much easier to get in there with the crimpers if the solenoid
was not yet installed. After spending about 15 minutes looking everywhere for some
suitable eye terminals, I ended up just exposing about 3/4 inch of bare wire on the ends of
my new extensions, wrapping the wire around the solenoid terminals and nutting them down
(it was starting to get late).
Finishing up....
Changed out oil filter and filled her up with Rotella Synthetic Blend 10W-30. Reconnected
the batteries and, amazingly, no signs of shortouts or fire considering my hack wiring job
on the solenoid and that I had basically been crawling all over the engine compartment for
the last 5+ hours. Turned the switch key on to let the fuel bowl fill up. I could clearly
hear the new relay kicking in when I switched the key on. After about 45 seconds of the
fuel pump running, I said the heck with this and punched the starter. Engine rolled over
about 5 times and fired up. Oil pressure came up after about 3-4 more seconds. With the
engine running, I was not able to detect any leaks from the fuel bowl or valve so hopefully
that is fixed. Pulled out of the garage about 12:30am.
The Payoff:
Temperature was in the lower 30's this morning in Cincy, cool enough to see if the new Glow Plug Relay was going to do the trick or not. Got in and turned on the key, waited for the "Wait To Start" light to go out, and hit the starter. Engine rolled over maybe 4-5 times and came to life. No white smoke. Before the fix I probably would have had to crank the engine over 20-30 times before it would fire and I'm sure this would have only gotten worse as the weather gets colder.
I'll get back under there to shore up the shoddy wiring this weekend. Also, I'm not totally satisfied with my fabricated GPR mount and will probably re-engineer that thing, too. All in all, though, I am glad to have gone through the experience and have learned a lot more about my truck in the process.
Now on to getting my ESOF to work! (New thread coming soon)
First off, big thanks to Big Joe and DaveBen for their insight on this.
Pulled the truck into the garage last night to get started on this. Goals for the evening:
1) Replace stock Glow Plug Relay with Stancor 586-902 relay
2) Replace fuel bowl drain valve O-rings.
3) Clean out fuel bowl and replace fuel filter
4) Change the oil
Note: When all this was said and done, it took me six hours to finish all this up. Plan
accordingly or break it up into smaller tasks. I am not a professional mechanic but have
raced circle track cars for 10 years, so I know a little about wrenching. The big
difference between working on race cars and street vehicles is that one of the primary
goals of race car design is ease of maintenance. Street vehicles are designed for
efficiency, economy, and squeezing a lot of "stuff" into limited space. Like I said, "BIG
difference".
First thing, unhooked batteries. Then started unhooking the GPR. The normally-hot
terminal twisted right out of the solenoid body as soon as I tried to unbolt it. The
underneath "contact side" of the post was burned and corroded so I am sure this was the
main problem. Removed the remaining wires and mounting nuts with no problems.
I had read somewhere among the 30+ posts I have seen about this procedure that it would be
a good idea to mount the new Stancor solenoid upright just like the stock one, so I fabbed
up a mount out of 16 gauge steel that would bolt up just like the old one. Primed and
painted the mount and moved on to #2 while the paint dried.
You could tell right away that it was good to have the GPR out of the way while removing
the fuel bowl drain valve because, as many people have noted, space is tight back there.
Two things saved me on this task:
1) I have a Stanley 3/8 ratchet that has a twist handle that spins the ratchet drive, so
once I adapted down from 3/8 to 1/4 and then put on the T20 bit, I barely had enough room
to get it all in there, but once I got the bit on the screws, I could just spin the handle
to loosen them enough to remove finish spinning them out with my fingers.
2) I have an old couch in my garage with big, fluffy cushions and I took one of them and
just laid it over the fender and part of the engine compartment so I could lie on my
stomach while doing this. There is no way I could have hung over the fender into the
engine compartment for as long as it took me to get this done.
Also, to anyone planning to replace these O-rings, consider unbolting the part mounted to
the firewall that has the red and green "vacuum lines" and some electrical wires running to
it (I don't even know what this thing is) and moving it out of the way while you're in
there. It's easy and gives you some more room to work. You'll be glad you did.
After about an hour, I had the drain valve out. I knew there was some "trick" to getting
the spool valve out of the valve body, but could not remember what it was and do not have
internet access down at my shop. I fiddled with it for about 20 minutes trying to get it
out and finally gave up. Here is a link to a very good write-up on how to do this but I did
not have the information last night. http://www.dieselorings.com/docs/FuelDrain.pdf The
top O-ring did not get replaced.
Otherwise, the reinstallation of the valve was just a reverse of the removal. Add one more
hour...
Task #3: Replace fuel filter. Sounds easy, right? As I said previously, I've had the
truck since 2008 and had never replaced it before. My guess is that it had NEVER been
changed. I am sure that Ford techs have some fancy socket to use that just spins the
filter cap right off. I don't and had to use a hammer and brass punch. Hitting the thing
as hard as I dared, finally got the cap broke loose enough to unscrew. I swear I think the
fuel bowl itself shifted positions while I was hammering on it, but, as of this morning, I
don't see any signs that anything got messed up. Took a ShopVac and sucked out all the
remaining fuel and gunk at the bottom of the bowl. Rinsed and repeated two more times with
clean diesel fuel. My new filter has a 3/4 inch "nut" molded into its cap, so
re-installation was a snap. Original bowl cap is in the trash.
Back to GPR reinstall...
As has been noted, the Stancor relay is considerably bigger than the stock unit. But I had
also read that there is plenty of slack in the GPR wires to reconnect to the larger relay.
Maybe so if you lay it on its side, but not so if you stand it upright. The yellow wires
bolted up just fine. After cutting away some factory electrical tape and pulling and
stretching, the hot cable was just barely long enough to go over the post. I got it on
there and bolted down but may have to revisit this situation to make sure there aren't
going to be problems. It was immediately obvious that the two coil energizing wires
weren't even close to going on their respective terminals. At this point, with some wiring
time ahead of me, I went ahead and put the oil drain pan under the truck and got the oil
draining out. Should be plenty of time for all the oil to finish dripping out of the
motor. Back to the GPR.
In retrospect, I would recommend extending those two wires before bolting the GPR back in.
After cutting off the factory eye terminals, there isn't much of a pigtail left to work
with and it would have been much easier to get in there with the crimpers if the solenoid
was not yet installed. After spending about 15 minutes looking everywhere for some
suitable eye terminals, I ended up just exposing about 3/4 inch of bare wire on the ends of
my new extensions, wrapping the wire around the solenoid terminals and nutting them down
(it was starting to get late).
Finishing up....
Changed out oil filter and filled her up with Rotella Synthetic Blend 10W-30. Reconnected
the batteries and, amazingly, no signs of shortouts or fire considering my hack wiring job
on the solenoid and that I had basically been crawling all over the engine compartment for
the last 5+ hours. Turned the switch key on to let the fuel bowl fill up. I could clearly
hear the new relay kicking in when I switched the key on. After about 45 seconds of the
fuel pump running, I said the heck with this and punched the starter. Engine rolled over
about 5 times and fired up. Oil pressure came up after about 3-4 more seconds. With the
engine running, I was not able to detect any leaks from the fuel bowl or valve so hopefully
that is fixed. Pulled out of the garage about 12:30am.
The Payoff:
Temperature was in the lower 30's this morning in Cincy, cool enough to see if the new Glow Plug Relay was going to do the trick or not. Got in and turned on the key, waited for the "Wait To Start" light to go out, and hit the starter. Engine rolled over maybe 4-5 times and came to life. No white smoke. Before the fix I probably would have had to crank the engine over 20-30 times before it would fire and I'm sure this would have only gotten worse as the weather gets colder.
I'll get back under there to shore up the shoddy wiring this weekend. Also, I'm not totally satisfied with my fabricated GPR mount and will probably re-engineer that thing, too. All in all, though, I am glad to have gone through the experience and have learned a lot more about my truck in the process.
Now on to getting my ESOF to work! (New thread coming soon)
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Tail_Gunner
CRJ & ERJ A&P Mech.
Not to sound like I'm hijacking the thread, but what are you having trouble with?
Transfer case operation
or
front lockout hubs not engaging / disengaging?
rocketdog
SDD Junior Member
It's the hubs. They won't lock in automatically and you can't turn them manually to lock them. My first problem, I know, is a vacuum leak that I've got to chase down. You can hear and feel the transfer case kick in when you turn the knob inside the cab. When I put into 4x4, AC starts blowing out the defroster. This tells me all the electrical is probably OK and its probably a leak somewhere from the solenoid to one (or both) of the hubs.
Only fix I've heard of for the frozen manual locks is to replace the hubs. I do want to keep the ESOF though instead of replacing with fully manual hubs. Just trying to get the bank account fat enough to buy new Ford hubs. I haven't heard of any other hubs that let you shift, ESOF-style, from inside the truck.
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