No start to start...unexpected.

[Tmos99]

This is kind of weird...98 Vortec Got this truck in August, runs like a top...Wife loves it, drives it more than I do....While being an unusually mild winter for Mi the truck has been running fine...The recent cold snap left the truck in a no start...I worked on it outside in the cold and could not get it to start. Tried pushing it into the garage, but its to heavy for my wife and I to move. So I pull out the truck this one was to replace, as I have not sold it yet..and use my K5 Blazer to push the Tahoe into the garage. Not sure what happened to it..but I think cold temps have something to do with it....The plugs were soaked in fuel, so I pulled them all and dried them out. Put them back in. still nothing. I pulled and inspected all the sensor plugs on the engine, checked all fuses and relays. No spark...so I pulled the fuel pump relay to track the spark problem without flooding the engine....While checking the crank sensor fuse in the dash I had to crank the engine to power the fuse for my test light to light.....truck starts up...First how can this happen with the fuel pump relay removed?...is that an issue?..I put a scanner on it and it shows no codes....I'm happy the truck is running again, but unsure what the problem was....Don't wanna get stranded somewhere if it happens again...any thoughts or experience with this?

 

[gregsb]

Must be something going around!

My truck did the same thing the weekend before this past one. I drove it to and from the area I snowmobile in and had no issues. I got home and took it to the car wash to get the salt off and it ran fine the rest of the night. Overnight the temp dropped and it would not start for anything all day Saturday. I waited until Sunday when the temps got back into the 30's and was going to check the fuel pressure first and then for spark so I borrowed a fuel pressure tester from Autozone and relieved the pressure in the system and nothing came out at all. I screwed the pressure tester on and turned the key and got 60+ lbs of pressure and it dropped to a bit over 10 lbs so I knew the fuel pump and system was working at that point. Turned it over to see if the pressure would change and it started right up!

I cannot figure out what caused it but now I am not trusting it much. I am assuming that when I took it through the car wash the mist and steam may have made its way into the distributor cap and froze overnight and then when it warmed up enough it thawed and started. My next step had it not started was to take a hair dryer to the cap and see if that fixed it but I did not need to do so. So far it has run and started like a champ since then.

Any thoughts anyone?

 

[bowtiefreak]

Well the washing the truck and freezing over night happens a lot, I froze up the starter and needed to torch it once.

 

[geo3xk]

This is kind of weird...98 Vortec Got this truck in August, runs like a top...Wife loves it, drives it more than I do....While being an unusually mild winter for Mi the truck has been running fine...The recent cold snap left the truck in a no start...I worked on it outside in the cold and could not get it to start. Tried pushing it into the garage, but its to heavy for my wife and I to move. So I pull out the truck this one was to replace, as I have not sold it yet..and use my K5 Blazer to push the Tahoe into the garage. Not sure what happened to it..but I think cold temps have something to do with it....The plugs were soaked in fuel, so I pulled them all and dried them out. Put them back in. still nothing. I pulled and inspected all the sensor plugs on the engine, checked all fuses and relays. No spark...so I pulled the fuel pump relay to track the spark problem without flooding the engine....While checking the crank sensor fuse in the dash I had to crank the engine to power the fuse for my test light to light.....truck starts up...First how can this happen with the fuel pump relay removed?...is that an issue?..I put a scanner on it and it shows no codes....I'm happy the truck is running again, but unsure what the problem was....Don't wanna get stranded somewhere if it happens again...any thoughts or experience with this?

It almost sounds like it was flooded. if it wasnt pumping fuel ans still started it def had enough in there. jmo

 

[Tmos99]

Man I forgot all about this thread...Just to follow it up, the truck eventually died completely...the wire between the fuel pump and the fuel pump relay was the culprit. I replaced that wire and repaired some hack wiring repairs that caused the problem to begin with...been running like a top ever since...Thanks for all your input...better late than never I guess....Thanks