i have a 97 ctd 4 wheel drive, the day the check engine light went on it starts real hard in the morning so i figured intake heaters are going out. my chiltons says i should check the voltage on the two bolts, any other ideas...?
Clunk
04-13-2008, 07:32 PM
Disconnect both batteries and check their voltages separately.
You should see 13.5 volts or better on each battery. If there's one at less than 13.5 volts, wait a few hours, with both batteries still disconnected, and check it again.
A good battery will keep a bad battery up until the bad battery finally takes the good battery down too.
nick02cummins
04-16-2008, 12:30 AM
I had one of my solenoids go bad a while back and it was actually stuck on. I pulled off the 2 wires going to them and put each one back on the battery individually, if one sparks a lot more than the other, thats the bad one. It doesn't sound like an intake heater though, seems more like a block heater.
Does it crank hard, or just take a while to fire?
Edit: didn't notice you were from Cali, so prolly not a block heater (here in OH a bad block heater when cold enough = a ton of crankin, lots of smoke, if it starts at all)....n/m on that, but the other applies, check for some kind of draw. Do a load test like already mentioned and see what ya got
pounder86
04-17-2008, 07:09 PM
it takes a while to start and its not even that cold out here in the mornings, but doesn't the motor need to be cold when i check the intake heaters because they won't go on if its not cold enough, or am i wrong?
Clunk
04-18-2008, 08:19 AM
The intake heaters come on at 52F or colder.
If it's cold enough, watch your voltmeter in the instrument panel when you turn the keyswitch on.
If the heaters work & the batteries are good, the voltage will drop to 12 volts for a several seconds then return to around 13 volts when the heaters cut off.
pounder86
05-07-2008, 04:06 PM
hey sorry it took so long to reply, i checked the voltage on the two nuts on the intake manifold and got nothing. i noticed the batteries were leaking a bit so i just had them warrantied but that didn't fix the problem. i didn't see any bad fuses, or any fuses for the intake heaters for that matter. and the volt meter on my instrument cluster is so slow and not very precice there is no way to see that way. what do i do now?
Red Sleeper
05-08-2008, 12:16 PM
Corosion is also a common problem on the intake heaters, but on the other end of the terminals.
Nie fix.
Clunk
05-08-2008, 07:28 PM
If the Check Engine light is still on, you can get a free scan at most chain type auto parts stores then we'll know what the computer is trying to tell us.
pounder86
05-13-2008, 10:27 AM
well i got a fuel pressure guage made and checked the pressure at the top of the fuel filter and it was pumping at 15 anstead of 25 psi, so i put in a new lift pump. it started without a problem for the first time this morning and the check engine light is off now. i guese that solves that, thanks for the help.
