7.3 no start

Huntindog wrote:
Got a fella in camp with a 7.3 that has 479,000 miles. It won't start. It smokes out the pipe when he cranks it.
I have already talked to him about my opinion.
He disagrees. He just keeps charging the battery with a generator and continuing to crank it more. Says he just needs to give it a good 30 second crank to get it to fire up.
I don't see it happening.

Any thoughts?

Could be a few things.

Here is my HO.

First line: "it smokes out the pipe."
To "me" this means raw fuel trying to light but just won't quite light off. That means the CPS is working if it smells fuelly out the pipe.

Now for a few questions. Does it seem to want to light but just won't quite get there? If so, that is a classic glow plug problem. Whether burnt out plugs or a controller or wiring problem. Could be any one of those.

My 6.5 was doing the same thing the other day. I did a check on them and 7 of 8 were gone. I was taught an easy way to check them the other day. Just take a piece of wire and clamp it to the + side of the battery. Unplug the GP and just "scratch" the terminal with the wire. If it's good it will throw off little sparks. If nothing, it's bad.

You can easily check the controller with a multi meter by unplugging a wire to a GP and putting the MM in line with it. Turn the key on and see if it trips the MM. 7.3's had a lot of problems with controllers.

It could also be low on compression. But that would depend on whether this just started doing this. If it just started doing this it's a "GP type" Problem.

Good luck.