No start issue

[Lee Majors]

Just bought this 1991.5 intercooled D350 with 180K miles on it. I have had it a total of 3 weeks and recently in the last 3-4 days each first start for the day will give me troubles.

I turn the key let the glow heater grid do its thing and all the truck will do is crank crank crank crank....and nothing. So I have to resort to a snort of Ether and that usually does nothing which suprises me!! After 4-5 cycles of turning over the motor for 15 seconds it will fire.. with my foot to the floor board it makes no difference in RPM it just barely idles for about 10-15 seconds then it will go back to being normal and will rev up and drive fine all day.

Today being the real pisser....hop in do the same and nothing....ether nothing full pedal nothing no start after 20 minutes ive drained the battery and still no start.

Could this be a worn out injection pump? To me it could almost be a bad shut off switch on the pump?

Im new to VE pumps this is my first but I have and have had several P-pump 12v's and commonrails.

Also right along when this starting issue came about i've noticed a buzzer that has gone haywire. When I put the key in the ignition a buzzer will go off that usually stops after 10 seconds or so...will do it when I have the key in the ignition and door open. I know that its more than likely normal but now it will seem to have two buzzers going off which odly makes it sound like bag pipes being played...no kidding!

The only way to get the buzzers to turn off is to start the truck or to take the key out. Im my case my key won't come out of the ignition! its stuck so I leave it there but now with this buzing issue I have to pull the ignition outwards.. (is this normal) I just happen to try to pull the key out the other day knowing it was usually stuck and the ignition popped out atleast 1" which stopped the buzzing.

All I can say is it looks like I got my hands full on this one. I bought this truck to daily drive until I got my other truck fixed then I could use this one as a weekend beater but now im stuck home with 2 broken trucks!

[CumminsPride]

Sounds like an air leak. Should be an easy fix, just hard to find. I had an air leak below the lift pump and if left set over night it would start real hard and then only idle for a few minutes till the pump case was filled.

[Ace]

You can determine if you have an air leak into the fuel line by splicing a short piece of clear plastic tubing into the line right before the lift pump and watch for air bubbles while it's running. If that's the case, then you can lightly pressurize the tank by sticking an air hose into the filler neck through a rag, then look for a wet spot. No more than a few psi tho, the tank's polypropylene and won't take much pressure.

[Lee Majors]

Good stuff guys...keep it coming. I will start to look for an air leak.