Poor cold starting, glow plugs?

[Old.Tony]

The Navara draws about 500A to crank its engine over so a big voltage drop isn't actually a huge surprise. Seeing 12.5V on it after sitting for 24 hours is a little disturbing, but it's not entirely the end of the world.

It would be interesting to charge it and do a load test on it. Takes hours to do - lead acid batteries don't respond quickly unless you directly connect +ve terminal to -ve terminal with a Stilson wrench. If the battery is faulty, the load test will reveal it.

If you can pop the top off the battery, check the specific gravity in each cell. one could be markedly different to the rest - that'd be the problem child, if any.

 

[the_bluester]

Yay, more test gear to buy!

It does have removable tops on the cells, better get myself an SG tester tomorrow. I would have thought dropping to under 10V on a single cold start would be risking getting low enough for the ECU to drop the ball if it had to be cranked for a while.

Will still do some glow plug testing I think. Now I have a new meter I can resistance test them. Have to do them individually as paralelled up they should be about 0.2ohms which would be pushing it for any sort of meaningful reading, unless it came out at .4 ohms or something, indicating two dead plugs.

 

[Old.Tony]

Shame you aren't nearby, I'd just lend you mine. Could also drop my battery into yours and see if that makes a difference, etc etc.

 

[the_bluester]

I have a jump start pack to boost it with, I was going to open the garage tonight so it gets nice and cool tonight and then start it with the pack in the circuit to see if that gets it to start properly in the morning.