Hi HEF, The '78 L9000 with a NTC-290 is hard cranking. It's been since last year since I had it running. Stack was covered, hood on... I thought it was electrical at first, but I barred it over today and is very difficult to turn over, besides I bench tested the starter, checked voltage drop from the battery terminals to the starter and all seems good. I have 12.7v on a 1000A battery. I checked a video at maybe to get an idea if the injectors were leaking. That is where I am at. I would sure appreciate some tips on this motor's issue!
There's a bunch of guy's on here that know every nut and bolt on those 855's, give it time and one of the contractor/operator/plumber/welder 855 people will have it diagnosed.
Whatever man. You’re the resident PhD!!
Well this issue isn't brand related most likely, just think of as a stinky dirty old b-cat that has sat in a cold climate expanding/contracting/ moisture in cylinder issue possibly, and all areas that could collect/leak.
Agreed. Crack the drain plug look for water/coolant in the pan but more than likely it’s just fuzzy in there. I’d be stiff and fuzzy if I was up in that country lol.
Maybe a longer bar would help. I'll try. And what is up with this square drive with two shoulders broke off? A square 11/16" drive and not 3/4"? I went over to Ralph and had him make me a socket that would fit by shaving off ,a 1/2" drive by 3/4" adapter. I hadn't seen him in awhile and he always asks what have you broken now. He told me a couple of stores about his recent fishing trips on his v6 Chevy jet boat. His Copper River story seemed especially dangerous as the glacial silt from the river stuffed the intake of his cooling system heat exchanger, getting the intakes glowing hot until they could shut down out of the current at O'Brien Creek. He got a bunch of Reds and he sent me away with some salmon fillets.Good man!
Well, I would never try to bar over at the crank. That's a hard pull even if she ran yesterday. Get you a socket that fits the pulley on the accessory drive. She'll bar over so much easier.
Does this ol girl have the compression release to get her spinning over? The old super 290 had a lever with a pull cable in the cab, iirc. You pull the cable, opening the comp release, get her spinning over good and slowly let the cable go, she starts catching here n there till she's billowing smoke.
1 5/16"
Seems like Chitna was eating boats this year. Water level was below normal and pumps were getting trashed. Hem was charging $1,000 for a tow back to O’Brian Creek. What a zoo.
compression release. *
Yeppers, that's the stuff. I couldn't for the life of me, remember the socket size. It's only the same on every one, but I haven't touched one in over 20 years. God I'm old
It's still hard cranking... It got turned maybe two revolutions and I think I *** up my neck in the process. With three batteries good batteries in parallel, all of them checking good on the load tester, and a 100amp battery charger on, It cranks a bit, maybe a quarter turn. Voltage on the dash gauge shows 15v before crank and well below 10v while cranking. I don't see a compression release. No room to wrench at an accessory. I'm almost back to suspecting the starter, but it Did check out at the local rebuilder. It has sort of done this before after running when I killed the engine from overloading. I would wait a few minutes and it would go. I guess the next step is to drop belts off accessories or build air, tow it up a hill and push start it?
Not common in Ford, but... is there perhaps a 24/12 series/parallel switch hiding somewhere? Back in the before times, there were 24/12 systems which were 24 volts to crank and start with a normal operating system of 12 volts. This was more prevalent on Paccar stuff, maybe some Osh-Kosh not so much Ford. Doesn't mean it can't be. Look around for a big solenoid with battery cables going to it about the size of a 1 liter bottle.
@funwithfuel once upon a time, this had a battery cut-off switch, but now there are 1/0 or so size cables direct from the battery to the starter (-) and starter solenoid (+) with clean and good ends. Voltage drop the last time I checked was .5v, a little high...
That .5v drop, is that while cranking or just static? Does any one connection get really hot or does any cable kinda jump or tense up?
That's a cranking drop that both positive and negative showed. I don't know about heating of the cables, etc, but it wouldn't surprise me if there was... I don't think my ammeter measures DC, but, anyway, there has to be very high A draw. This vid was my reference for Voltage drop test
So negative clamp on ground post at battery. Check positive at battery, then at starter solenoid, have someone hit the key while you measure voltage and drop under load. If you find something glowing, smoking, jumping, look closer at either end, once it cools. Also check the L-strap off the solenoid to the armature. If that's loose, she'll click hard but not spin worth a darn.
Right, one lead to neg at bat. The other to neg at starter. Crank and measure drop. Then, One lead to pos at bat and the other to pos on starter. Crank and measure. I'll check the drop on the L-strap, worth a try
Could the air compressor be creating so much drag?
Highly unlikely.
I put my best battery in with two more batteries on jumper cables and a 100 charger. She cranked a bit. Then it was hard, then it eased into it and ran!
That has a old Delco MT 40 for a starter--unless it was checked on a torque bench tester to be able to properly load it while testing--well there's no way to know. MT 40's required perfect everything to work correctly-had a real issue with solenoid contacts. The best thing to do is toss it and install a Delco MT 39 gear reduction starter, has way more power at lower cranking amps plus spins engine 33% faster. MT 39 Part # 8200308 with rotate- able stater drive nose cone.
Thanks for the advice! You know stuff!!! The MT40 was bench tested as "good" at the rebuilder in Wasilla but I couldn't say that they have a torque bench tester. NAPA sent me over there. One more question: how much battery CCA should a gear reduction starter require? I may get new batteries along with a starter. I have an 8D at 100CCA and was running two 65CCA in parallel.
HD31 12V screw tops are normally in the 950 cold cranking amp range, there are some as high as 1200 cca.
I have 3 group 31's and cranks my n14 fine, when I had my battery's stolen I used two junk batteries and jumpers to get it home, didn't crank very well
They are just down the road from me.
She's got two new H8(49) AGM batteries, 1000 CA each with some new cable and soldered connections. Should be good. If not, I'll follow the advice about a gear reduction starter. Thanks for all the help! My battery load tester seems to have taken me down a longer path since the old batteries tested ok.