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Troubleshooting a no-start on 94 Suburban - can you help?

Question: 
436 views 2 replies 2 participants last post by  gofarm 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
Good morning. Can you help me? I’m diagnosing a no-start with my 94 Suburban 6.5 and want to be sure I’ve covered all the reasonable possibilities before I replace the IP.

Vehicle:
• 1994 Suburban k2500
• 270k miles
• IP date appears to be 1/03, not the original IP
• PMD in factory location

Pre-failure Symptoms:
• Occasional stall over the last 5 years (less than a dozen times). Immediate restart each time
• Occasional miss over the same period, seemed to occur especially at highway speeds and high torque (uphill) Never could pinpoint if this was engine miss or transmission slip but suspected former
• Occasional CEL briefly lighting over the same period, not necessarily combined with the above symptoms
• Truck used only 2-3k miles per year for the last 3 years, daily driver before that. Cold starting took longer over the last few years with more white smoke.

Failure scenario:
Traveling at highway speed on a cool afternoon. CEL came on followed soon after by missing and then the throttle stopped responding, throttle settled out at ~2k rpm. When I tapped the brakes, the engine would throttle down but if I hit the APP again, it increased to ~2k. I could maintain close to highway speed in this condition. I shifted to neutral, pulled over and stopped. Engine began to cough and smoke. I shut it off. Restarted: engine idled roughly, black smoke, no throttle response. Towed home. Restarted: same symptoms but now worse, with engine seeking excessively, no rpm stability at all. Shut off. This time I smelled plastic burning. Checked under the hood and saw smoke from the PMD. Truck never restarted.

What I’ve done to troubleshoot:
• Troubleshot APP via AccurateDiesel’s guides (tests good)
• Troubleshot PMD circuit with AccurateDiesel's PMD guide – some question as to signal from the IP but not sure if I was measuring the voltage properly. I will probably need to recheck this.
• R2 PMD with 3 tested and 1 brand new module – no start with all
• Removed fuel solenoid and tested (good)
• Checked ECM fuse (good)
• Checked fuel filter (clean)
• Checked air filter (clean)
• Checked lift pump (opened t-valve while cranking)
• Cracked injector line on #3 – no fuel during cranking
• Checked fuel level (est 5-7 gal in tank)
• Checked resistance at all major grounds (G101, G102, G104, G105, block-to-frame straps, PMD ground), all .4 ohm or less
• All starting attempts have been made with fully charged batteries.

Unfortunately, I disconnected the battery for long-term storage without thinking about that erasing codes so I don't know what codes were tripped in the original incident. I'm grateful for any suggestions of alternative vectors to check.

Thanks.
-Adam
 
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#2 ·
When you test the PMD, was the PMD on a heatsink?
You know if it is NOT, then you toast all those PMD.

Did you load test the batteries one at a time?
 
#3 ·
I have not load tested the batteries. At full charge during start testing, the start cycle appeared to operate at a similar rpm to previous good-start cycles.

PMDs were not mounted to any heatsink for the start testing. There is quite a bit of metal on the bottom plate, I'd think that's plenty of thermal mass for 15-20 second tests. None of the modules were even hot following testing. Is that out of the ordinary?

-Adam
 
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