My 1990 D250 seems to have to work very hard to start in the mornings. It has a brand new Group 31 battery, it only has a single battery, not duals. The grid heater seems to be working, it just acts like the starter has trouble turning it over on cold mornings. Any thoughts? Thanks.

 

does it sound like the starter is dragging
or does it crank over alot
have you tried to give it a little throttle while cranking did it help

 

altenator? idk man sounds like maybe the starter

 

we need a little more info to help you out. like hotcummins says, is the starter g or is it cranking over well. is it trying to start and sputters or what? fill us in with as much possible info as you can and well get you straightened out

 

It just seems that the starter has to work very hard to turn it over. It always starts, usually after two or three rotations of the engine, but the thing turns over slow. I just figured that this must be hard on the starter.

 

check your battery voltage while your cranking on the starter. that battery might be a little too small for the starter. either that or the starter might be gettin worn

 

I have 2 92' Cummins, 1-00' Cummins and 1 05' Cummins and my 92's are the most sensitive to the cold. Mine are also single battery but I make sure they are 1,000 cranking amp batteries. They don't like to start when they turn over slow trust me. When it gets below 65 I preheat till the light goes off and then I wait about 5 seconds and preheat a second time and then she cranks right up. If yours kind of runs rough right after you start it that means the cylinders are still cold. The older Fords were notorious for cracking cylinders when this would happen so shut it off and pre heat one more time. Let me know if this changes anything.

 

in 40* weather without my preheaters even coming on my truck cranks over in about .5 seconds maybe 1 second on a long run.

 

You got a strange Cummins because my 00' won't even do that.

 

mine is the same. it can sit all night or i go on top the mtn and snowboard for about 8 hours where its like 15* colder and come out cycle the heater once and touch the key and it fires right up. in my opinion the electronic trucks take longer to start.