new diesel owner needs help
 

I have a 1999 suburban 6.5 diesel drove fine came home shut it off next morning a little cold I had it plugged in all night cranked it over will not start i seen white smoke from the exhaust so i waited and tried again a few times i drained the two battery's down so i picked up 2 new battery's installed and now it cranks slow and the body ground wire gets very hot .
I sure can use some suggestions on where to go from here with this truck i had the truck for 1 week so i don't have any history on it except new head gasket and head .


Thanks for any help. bill

Repost this in 6.2-6.5 section and they will help.

:hellox::hellox:

Alrighty then, the slow cranking is probably one of two things. You might not have gotten big enough batteries. Shoot for 700 cold cranking amps or more for each battery, the bigger the better. If you didn't get 700 cca batteries you might want to since diesels need lots of juice to crank, especially when cold. The other thing that might be bad is you starter. I know mine started slow cranking and it became impossible to start in the cold. The big wire running down to the starter (passanger side battery hot) kept getting to hot to touch for long and I got really slow cranking out of it. When the starter gets old it starts pulling excessive juice to turn it and just won't turn as fast. I saw you got new batteries, if they are 700+ cca, you might need a new starter, pull off the old one and test it out, you can do it yourself pretty easily or go to autozone or somewhere that will test them for free, I wouldn't really trust them, mine passed and was all tuckered out. If you test it yourself just get some jumper cables and ground them anywhere on the starter body and connect the hot to the largest bolt sticking out of the solenoid, should be on the top, and then get a screwdriver and connect the largest pole of the solenoid (where the hot is connected) and hold it against the smallest pole, I think its the left one and it should click and twist pretty good if its in good shape. If you're worried about connecting it wrong, just connect the hot to where the wire that runs from the solenoid to the starter body and you effectively bypass the solenoid. Connect the jumpers to the battery first though, and keep your foot down on the starter and probably just touch the ground to the body with the hot already connected to be safe. Like I said, it should have some pretty good kick if the battery is fully charged, if it doesn't then probably order a new starter, they are around $150, I bought one on the internet for $100 but had some issues with it after a couple weeks.

Hopes this helps.

I had the slow cranking problem too. Make sure your battery terminals are snug and the posts are not stripped out. You can replace the posts that are pressed into the cable.

I remember a long time ago when I was rebuilding those DS pumps that this condition happened once in a while. Find a local shop where they service the pumps or rebuild diesels and they should have an answer for you.
If not, call Boston Fuel Injection (They bought the shop where I used to work here in NH) and they will have the answer, even if you don't like it lol.

Check glow plugs and make sure they all get power-each glow plug has a fusible link as well as each side has their own additional fusible link.

Bosch duratherm are the best replacement glows.