Four O'Clock this morning, we were staying at a motel 6 in ElPaso, ans we were going to go and grab some breakfast. I fired up the GMC, and it fired right up after about two revolutions, just like always. After running for about a minute at idle, it just stopped. I tried to restart it normally, and it fired up, ran about thirty seconds, and died. I waited thirty seconds, started it again, but this time I gave it half throttle as I started it, and it fired up after about five revolutions, and I held the idle between 1,500, and 2,000 RPM for about a minute, and then it ran FINE. We went and had Breakfast, and I had to start it the same way. Oil pressure was normal, temp was normal, and it was 40 degrees outside. I took it from there to Autozone and asked them to put their reader on it, and they said it was the sweetest idleing truck that they had heard in quite a while, so the scan wouldn't tell them anything. I went to the local Harbor Freight, and got some hand tools, as all my tools were home, 90 miles away. I brought the truck back to the motel room, parked it to get our stuff from the room, and go home. when I went to start it, the thing would not start, it would not even "Hit". I had the fuel filter, lift pump, oil pressure switch, and sock in the tool box on the bed. The motel only let me switch the filter, and lift pump, and I did not get a DROP of diesel on the ground, but now it won't start or hit still. I opened the black bleed valve on the filter, the housing of which was only 20% full when I pulled the old filter out. I opened the black bleed valve up, touned the engine on to glow plug mode, left it on till the light went out, but still no fuel came out. When I switched the lift pumps, (the old one was running), diesel came out in a steady stream from the inlet line to the lift pump, and it was clean. I'm afraid now that I will run the batteries down to nothing trying to get the air out of the system. If I can't drive it out in the morning by noon, it will have to get towed to the GMC dealer, and the bill will be more that we can afford. My sweetie pie went from very happy befor the trouble, to steadily downhill, and has been borderline suicidal since about 4 PM Today, (Thursday). HEEEELP!

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I was sitting talking to my sweetie pie WHILE I was writing the post, so NUTHING got said. What I need to know is THIS. When I bleed the system tomorrow, do I bleed the Filter through the black first, or can I just open the "T"- valve on the front of the engine instead??? Someone please tell me. Also, should I gently pull the filter out of the housing, and take a Beer bottle full of Diesel fuel, and fill the canister and THEN slowly ease the filter back in the Housing??
THANKS GUYS, I just need to know the best and fastest way to bleed out the system. Should I just hot wire the Lift Pump to the batteries, leaving the load of the glow plugs and cranking the engine,out of the bleeding operation?

 

I'm starting to think you may have a collapsed or plugged fuel line from the lift pump to the motor because you said it was 20% full. But your getting fuel to the lift pump.
And don't hard wire the glow plugs on all the time,you'll burn them up.
And yes it's a good idea to put fuel in the bowl when trying to prime the system.
And it's not a good idea to hard wire the lift pump on all the time,you'll burn up the lift pump.

 

OK, I'll take the filter back out of the canister, and pour in some diesel to speed the priming up. I was just going to hard the lift pump in order to prime the system without running the starter, then I was going to plug it back into the factory connector, can I do that to keep the battery draw down?

 

An even easier way to prime is to supply 12v to the red wire with the insulator near the underhood fusebox-that is the prime wire.


Only bleed the filter through the cap vent-the Tee valve is only water in fuel drain-air won't come out there because it is situated at the bottom of the canister,air rises in fuel.

 

THANKS Racer55, Noe I know exactly WHAT each of the two bleed systems are for on the engine.
We had to take the truck to the local GMC dealer to bleed the fuel system, but the dealer was only 2.5 miles down the road, so the tow was free on my brand new AAA Premium membership. Their mechanic looked at the job that I did replacing the lift pump, and fuel filter in the Motel 6 parking lot, and said that it looked professional. As soon as they got the air out, it fired right up. They ran a diagnostic on it, and it had no memory of any codes. All in all, I learned a little more about diesels, I found out that there were no codes thrown on it even before I bought it, and the purging of the fuel system that I was NOT going to do in our favorite Motel's new parking lot only cost me 113 dollars.
Brie

 

Wow, what an ordeal! Glad its running. I live in El Paso myself. If ya have any more issues, while driving through, I'll be glad to give you a hand.

 

Thanks, Bigg Redd, I'm Retired Army, so I'm always in town on the First, and Third of the month. Perhaps some weekend, we could meet for coffee in the morning, or a Beer in the afternoon, and to check out each other's trucks. Smokey's isn't too far from the Motel 6 that we stay at, and they have GREAT BBQ, and the Corona is always cold.
Brie

 

Sounds like a plan to me. Im retired as well. I can always be found on this forum.