Sluggish start, periodically doesn’t start

Blue truck lives under cover next to the house. Sometimes a few weeks without being driven. All of a sudden the truck wasn’t turning over so well. Sometimes just a click.

This happened before and I diagnosed it to bad ground wires.

This time the battery voltage was actually low though. Water level in battery is fire. I put truck on a charger overnight and it starts great, then a week later its not turning over again.

Eventually it gets pretty bad, starts great, drive somewhere, doesn’t want to start… the fact that its so periodic makes me think its wires. But I check the wires, they all look good… I remove them, grind the ends, nothing seems to help.

Given that there’s a bunch of corrosion around the batteries and they were old when I bought the truck 3 years ago, I’m thinking might as well get new batteries. I head to Costco and get a pair of 27DC batteries for $80 each. Change into truck in the parking lot and what do you know… the truck is still sluggish to start! And they are charged. Ok, not the batteries then…

New batteries but truck still has trouble starting

At home I check each battery again, undo all the cables and wires. I notice that the positive wire to the starter solenoid has a pretty loose end. This is a cable I haven’t touched. Actually the end is attached well but the wire at the end of the head is unusually bendy… yeah, seems like maybe that wire bundle is broken inside. It has low resistance if measured with a multimeter but it won’t flow enough power to start the truck.

This is the cable from battery positive to starter solenoid. That wire was pretty bendy right at the inner end of the crimp!

I cut off the end, crimp on a new one and bingo, aggressive start like I remember. I didn’t bother to replace the wire since it seems to be nice flexible stuff.

Can see how outside of cable was burned – it got toasted trying to flow too much current.

So… bad cables… evil!

New crimp from west marine, pounded onto slightly shorter cable. Is good! And no need to spend $20 on a new cable.

 

 

Debugging Electrical Problem

Symptom One:

Funny thing. My wife drives the blue bomber, comes back 5 minutes later because forgot something. Back in truck and it won’t start…

What the heck? What did she do? She broke it!!

Symptom is that voltage drops to nothing when ignition is turned.

I fiddle and play around, determine that something is amiss with the glow plug relay. I buy a ford diesel glow relay and wire it up. Works great, problem solved…

 

See that grey plastic cylinder with the 4 bolts on top? That is the glow plug relay. Small amount of current goes from batter to glow button under dash. When button is pressed that small amount of current goes to the glow relay, causes it to open which causes a large amount of current to go from the battery to the glow plugs in the engine. Reason for this is you don’t want lots of current going through a little button…

 

Symptom Two:

And then about a month later a very similar symptom occurs, voltage drops to zero when you try to ‘glow’ or start the motor.

Now I’m spending hours with the multimeter, and searching the internets for advice. The best thread I can find on ih8mud is:

IH8Mud Thread On Problem Starting 3B

Previous owner was impetuous and seemed to have extra speaker wire. Lots of spare wires zip-tied together. Lots of unplugged things (mostly from auto-glow system.)

Truck developed problem after sitting undriven for a few weeks. For in-car readings I used a cigarette lighter volt meter. Symptoms were all over the map but primary problem was:
– turn key one click, inside voltage is 10.4, yet batteries show 12.5 volts.
– turn key another click, voltage drops to 6-7 or below, yet batteries show 12.5 volts. The inside voltmeter barely displays at such low voltage.
Other times (seemingly randomly over 2 hours of exploring.)
– turn key one click, 10.4 volts
– turn key another click it stays at 10.4… woo!
o Hit glow switch and voltage dives to zero. Battery voltage never changed.
o Hit brake pedal and voltage dives to zero.
o Try and crank and voltage dives to zero.

After diving to zero the truck is dead for 30 seconds or so, then voltage recovers. The entire time the battery voltage is stable at 12.5.

I measure voltage and resistance across many places in engine bay. All seems fine. 0.3 ohms from starter to battery, from starter solenoid to battery. Cleaned battery posts and all cable ends. No difference.

Used jumper cables to ground all sorts of stuff (starter, block, frame) back to the – battery terminal. Made no difference. Jumped right battery to my… other… bj60… inside voltage shows 12.4. Try to glow and voltage goes to 6-7. Try to start, it cranks! A few seconds. Almost starts. When I stop cranking the inside voltage goes to 6-7 again.

Hmm. If jumping sort of works? Took batteries in for load test, supremely uninformative test machine gave them ‘pass’ light when set to 700cca.

Figured based on this thread to just build new ground cables because the old ones were so ugly. Worst case I have nice new cables.

Nasty old cable end

More nasty cable end.

What a pair they make, more nasty old ground cables.

 

Built new ground cable from 0/1 cable I got from Napa ($7.5/foot), and some other 0/1 cable from Lowes (napa ran out). The napa stuff was flexible, lowes was THWN-2 and is much harder to bend. Expensive fittings were $2 each at Napa. I crimped the ends on using a big vice. For kicks I also replaced the ends on the hot wire from ‘+’ of right battery to alternator.

Cables replaced:
– left negative to left battery tray bolt
– left battery tray bolt to left engine block
– right negative to right battery tray bolt
– right battery tray bolt to right engine block
– ends on that alternator cable

Passenger side engine ground attachment.

New ground wire from driver side battery to body.

 

After bolting the cables on… success. Everything is perfect and back to normal.

Woo! 12.73 volts!

 

In all of this the only thing I found wrong: I noticed that the – battery terminal clamp for the right battery was quite loose. Resistance of old cables seems fine so must have been that slightly loose clamp on the right side? When playing with jumpers I only grounded to left battery (battery + are connected with cable but negative are each independently grounded to body and block.) In hindsight I’m guessing the truck would have started working if I’d just jumpered the left and right – terminals (because I believe the left ground was good.)

Advice for building your own ground cables: After building and installing the new cables I did some research. The cheap cable from lowes is made of fewer thick sold copper wires. It is too stiff and will not age well given the motion of the diesel motor relative to the body. Marine cable is zinc coated, is the most flexible and has the best temperature and chemical resistance, and 0/1 is sold locally for between $4.50 and $7/foot. If I ever do this again I’m using that stuff. Also I’m going to get some good copper battery terminals.

Building Cables:

Well, that success lasted all of a day before I realized I couldn’t live with that hard conduit cable in the truck. No way would it last, its too stiff and will break.

I head to west marine and buy 6 feet of their ANCOR 0/1 marine cable, in black. It is very flexible and has terrific fuel safe, self extinguishing insulation. Also it is tinned so corrosion resistant. I also head back to Napa for 4 more of them $2 fittings.

Lastly I go to amazon and look to see what is available in a cable crimper!

Looking at all the crimpers on amazon, and on the internet in general I realize that a simple “Hammer Crimp” is all I need. That’s what folks used for 80 years, what old service stations used forever and ever. It ought to be fine for me, and make a better fitting that what I could achieve by squishing the ends in a vice. Further benefit is that they are ~$25.

On amazon I look at all the crimpers, all look similar, can’t tell them apart. Luckily one of the crimpers is made by Temco! Temco is BAD-ASS company that builds large industrial transformers, inverters, BIG electrical stuff, stuff that architects take into account when designing buildings. Stuff that costs $50k to $500k. They make a range of crimpers from the simple hammer crimp up to $1k pneumatic/electric crimpers. These guys make crimpers because they know what they’re doing and need good crimps. Nice that they think of the little guy, take the trouble to build a cheap reliable crimper.

They even have a photo on their site of what a proper hammer crimp looks like. The crimp with hammer hits so hard that the copper strands are welded into a solid under the crimp. BAD-ASS!

Link to Temco Hammer Crimp on Amazon

I cut new lengths, put on the shrink wrap, crimp the ends on. Wow this stuff is flexible. Never thought much about ground cables before. These are sweet!

 

Blue Bomber Part 2

Truck home, go over it for maintainance that’s been deferred.

Seller assures that oil change is due in a few thousand k, so that will be on hold for few thousand kms.

On a hunch we changed the fuel filter and found fuel that was poured out of filter was very black. Yuck. New filter and primed and car seemed to run better. The built in fuel priming pump on this truck is on its last legs, when unscrewed fuel is spilled everywhere while pumping. Need to install a replacement from Bosch. Meh… next time…

Removed air filter, looked dirty and covered in crud so put in a new one. Wow that helped.

Brake fluid looks good but clutch fluid was dark amber. We bleed clutch system with no issues. Clutch is simple to bleed with pedal (and an assistant) because clutch pedal sees full travel in normal use. Brakes are tricky and you need to be careful because normal brake usage doesn’t fully exercise the brake master cylinder’s travel so the bore will be corroded in the unused section. If you use full travel you’ll destroy the seal in the master cylinder. Best bet for brakes is to use a pressure bleeder (which I don’t own.)

I drive the truck to work for the next week getting a feel for its problems. Really the only problem is the big 35″ wheels which make the car so sluggish. Got to find some stock wheels. Engine seems peppy though and handling is excellent despite the huge stupid wheels. Well, gotta say the heavy tinting sucks for visibility.

I installed my voltmeter in cigarette lighter and while voltage is maintained properly at idle I see that voltage rises with rpm, going way past 14.2volts, up to 15 or 15.5. No wonder the batteries look bad. Clearly the alternator is due for a trip to Romaine Electric.

Saturday we remove and clean the batteries and see that the rubbery paint on the battery trays is delaminating. Pull on the rubber and there’s a ton of rust underneath. Yummy!

This is what you should always suspect is under the rubber coating of a battery tray…

One side is worse than the other, probably that side saw its battery boil over a few more times than the other.

Remove the trays and take to my friend with a blasting cabinet, then spray with metal etch primer and then epoxy paint (this is a new thing to try, I’ve heard metal etch primer is the key to a good paint job, we’ll see I guess.) Problem with these modern paints is that they work so well that you don’t know if paint job is “good” for 20 years or so.

Painted with metal etch primer, then covered with the VHT suspension epoxy. Hmm. The epoxy is supposed to be “DTM” so maybe the primer won’t let it adhere as well? Live and learn we’ll see I guess.

Pitting and preferation from the rust.

The metal is quite thin and flimsy in places but the tray as a whole is still strong enough.

The batteries are showing different voltages, one is 12.7, the other 12.4 I’m going to guess due to corroded cable ends and poor ground? Or something? I put the batteries on the smart charger and the low one takes more than a day to reach 12.7. Gotta keep my eye on it though but probably they’ll last a long time after the alternators voltage regulator is repaired.

View down under the passengers side tray.

Alternator prior to removal (so I can remember what goes where.)

Remove alternator is a bit of a chore. Remove oil lines, disconnect electrical plugs. The adjustment bracket that alternator bolts to is pretty badly bent so difficult to slide the alternator around. I remove the pivot bolt from the bottom but alternator won’t come loose. I end up removing the airbox too so I can see better. That takes 5 minutes and really helps for access.

Factory manual doesn’t mention anything so I search on internet for an hour or so for special tricks. Finally find a post that suggests one must reef on it and if it doesn’t come loose… find someone stronger! Ok, I can do that. Sure enough pulling hard frees the alternator. The issue are the bushings that are pressed into the bottom of the alternator stick out a bit so it takes force to work the alternator loose. Drop it off at Romaine on Monday, so now vehicle is undrivable. Remove and clean all the cable ends, sand the grounding bolts for a better connection.

bj60 alternator, see vaccum pump on left side. If you spin the alternator it spurts oil! Yay!

BJ60 Alternator, vaccum pump on top. Can clearly see the bushings that hold the pivot bolt.

Alternator takes almost 2 weeks to repair due to Romaine’s builder being sick. Comes back looking like new though. Before installing we replace all the belts. To change belts the fan doesn’t need to be removed, belts can be worked around it. Fortunate we did swap the belts because coolant pump belt was cut almost clear through.

Now that paint has cured for a few weeks we paint the tray and surrounding area with fluidfilm ar. Also take the time to fluidfilm the airbox inside and out.

Boy With Rebuilt 1984 BJ60 Alternator

That “bare metal” is actually painted with clearcoat.

Amazing work eh?

“Romaine electric and boy with rebuilt 1984 bj60 alternator.”

Alternator reinstallation I used a pry bar to lever it back onto the pivot, then replaced bolts and washers. We grind the cable ends to remove corrosion and ensure a clean connection. Also grind the area around the grounding bolt for each battery. Battery install went fine and luckily the myriad of cables all went to obvious places because I didn’t take notes when removing them. The batteries are a bit small though, truck can fit larger ones. Why buy a smaller battery than you can fit?

Big moment… the truck starts perfectly. No issues on our neighborhood victory lap.

BJ60 Battery Replacement

Yeah, I left the lights on:Mountain biking at some distant location last weekend. Arrive back to the frankencruiser in the afternoon, load the children into the car and lo, the car doesn’t turn over, just a “Click!”

 

Oh jeese. I left the lights on. Couldn’t see them shining in the morning light. Good thing this car doesn’t need electricity to run and that I parked on a good slope. Release the brakes, back the truck out, then roll forward under the courtesy of gravity. Pedestrians walking side by side up the parking lot are loath to give way to a silently accelerating land cruiser. Shift into 4th, pop the clutch and engine catches instantly. I suppose startup was helped by being warmed all day in the blazing sun.

Drive 2 hours back to seattle and put the batteries on the charger. Batteries accept the full 6 amps. 3 hours later its still taking 5.5 amps. Oh boy, maybe the batteries are toast.

Next morning the batteries are taking 3 amps. On starting the voltage is very low, like 10.5 volts but dropping to 6 when I hit the glow button. Such low voltage after charging all night is a bad sign. I notice that the left battery has a crack in the plastic near the positive terminal, oh man, wonder if its leaking? Out comes the baking soda, distilled water. I fill the 2 cells that are low, scrub the batteries down with water and baking soda. The baking soda boils ominously, especially down the side of the battery and into the battery tray. Boilage means there is acid all over the thing. Not a good sign, its leaking…

I leave the charger on all the next day but signs are not good, looks like I’m in for a new pair of batteries.

Sure enough the engine starts right up the next morning. I drive to work and back home. That night I attach the charger again. 2 minutes later, walking past the rig I hear an odd hissing or buzzing. Hmm. Scan around with the ears and zoom in on the left battery, the one with the crack in it. The battery sounds like its boiling or off gassing something serious. Smells bad. This is not good, not something that should happen when only 2 amps are applied. Now I’ve no doubt. I disconnect the charger with plan to get a battery the next day.

The old batteries:

For the record the batteries in the truck were 3 year old Energizer Deep Cycle 27DC. The side of the battery said “Marine Deep Cycle” but I doubt they were truly deep cycle as they listed 850 CCA each which is high even for a starting battery. Also amazing they list 180 reserve capacity, which is huge and probably optimistic. These batteries are both dated 1/10, so dead after only 3.5 years and they did not age well, I suspect the high CCA came from thin plates and they didn’t survive the deep cycling that previous owner applied.

Cracked case to the right of the positive terminal, leaking acid all over everything.

The new batteries:

First temptation is to get the super awesome excellent batteries that the previous owner had installed. Searching old messages they were Optima D27M, “Blue Top” deep cycle batteries. “Spiral Technology”. They’re also $215 each. I search a little more on the internet and learn something about batteries. First that the optimas are really expensive and don’t seem to last longer than regular batteries. Really the longevity of batteries depends upon their usage.

Research online, perhaps the best overview of batteries is this solarpower web site:

http://www.solar-electric.com/deep-cycle-battery-faq.html

By Wikipedia CCA is cold cranking amps, means (from Wikipedia):

Cold cranking amperes (CCA) is the amount of current a battery can provide at 0 °F (−18 °C). The rating is defined as the current a lead-acid battery at that temperature can deliver for 30 seconds and maintain at least 1.2 volts per cell (7.2 volts for a 12-volt battery). It is a more demanding test than those at higher temperatures. This is the most widely used cranking measurement for comparison purposes.

This value matters as a starter needs sufficient current to turn the engine over. There is not much benefit to actually having huge CCA, but often a higher valued battery will be able to deliver more current when the battery is drained. The CCA has to do with the amount of surface area of the plates in the battery.

Downside of CCA is that the plates will be thinner, will corrode and wear more quickly, so there is a tradeoff.

Another orthogonal measure of battery performance is Reserve Capacity (again from Wikipedia):

Reserve capacity minutes (RCM), also referred to as reserve capacity (RC), is a battery’s ability to sustain a minimum stated electrical load; it is defined as the time (in minutes) that a lead-acid battery at 80 °F (27 °C) will continuously deliver 25 amperes before its voltage drops below 10.5 volts.

This matters if you are drawing current over a longer period, for example running a fridge in the back while the engine is off.

These two battery properties are balanced against each other to form 3 categories of battery:

Starting Battery: used for starting, short draws of high amperage. These batteries will be quickly ruined if they are discharged more than about 2-5%.

Deep cycle battery: used for continuous low power draw these generally tolerate a 50% draw without damage.

Marine battery: these are a balance of deep cycle and starting. They provide sufficient CCA to start a motor, but otherwise are built with thicker plates or lead sponge to survive a deeper draw.

Replacing the batteries:

End of the day I was convinced by a set of posts I saw that generally suggested:

Get the biggest heaviest battery you can find that has the Lowest Sufficient CCA

That is, CCA must only meet your needs, unused CCA compromises durability. An example is Golf Cart Batteries, or forklift batteries, which have CCA of 30-40 and which weigh 100 pounds. Those batteries tolerate deep discharge to almost 20% because their plates are so thick.

I see Costco sells the Interstate 27DC under its own Kirkland brand. They’re $88 each, rated much more conservatively at 600CCA and 115 amp hours. Seems a good price compared to the other stores I visited and both Interstate and Costco have a fine reputation. It seems to meet my “heavy and low cca” requirement.

New batteries from Costco, made by Interstate.

Canadian BJ60 with Arctic Package comes with two batteries. As a 1984 it is still 12 volt, same as nearly every other car on the road. The two batteries are connected in “parallel” meaning that the batteries are connected: positive to positive, negative to negative. By connecting the batteries in this way the voltage remains at 12 but the capacity is roughly doubled, double the CCA, double the reserve capacity.

I put on my gloves and disconnect the batteries, pull them out of the truck.

View of the two batteries, one on each side, with connector cables.

Out with the old, in with the new.

The new and old batteries

Once the batteries are out its an opportunity to inspect and clean the battery tray. They look amazing and new, until I tapped the base with a screwdriver. Uh oh, looks like the rubber coating has detached from the metal, no doubt there is rust underneath:

Oh yeah! Classic Rust in battery tray. Battery acid is nasty stuff! This is right before I peeled that rubber coating off the metal.

Turns out they are both pretty rusted, the one with the leaky battery maybe a little more so. I peel and scrape, then sand. Then clean with degreaser. Even scrape from underneath. Let the water dry and then apply a coat of zinc galvanized repair paint:

Galvanized paint to the battery tray.

Yes, this is not a professional job. I should take the trays out and media blast. That would take days though and I need this done by the weekend.

After an hour for the first coat to dry I pull up any remaining loose rubber coating and apply a second coat.

Coat of zinc galvanized paint.

Later that evening the paint is dry to the touch. I find some awesome black epoxy suspension paint and recoat everything, also sand down and repaint the battery hold downs. Let it all dry overnight.

I also put the new batteries on the charger.

In the morning the epoxy paint still smells toxic but is dry to the touch. I pull out the pail of Fluidfilm and coat the battery trays top and bottom, all over everywhere including the frame where the washed out battery acid had dripped.

Connectors are shiny after buffing

I also take out the sander and buff all the cable connectors in the car (seriously corroded and nasty) so they’re all bright and brassy.

Install the new batteries, recoat the terminals and everything with more Fluidfilm.

Fluidfilm caked onto battery terminals. Prevents corrosion and arcing.

Result:

Holy moly! Since I first laid eyes on this truck the voltage has dropped from 12 down to 7 or 8 when the glow plugs are activated. Even when the engine is running the glow plugs would drop the voltage. Now I turn the key, voltage meter rises to 12. When I hit the glow plugs – The Voltage Doesn’t Move! Man that is some additional capacity. I’d no ideas those batteries were so dead.