My truck has trouble starting in the cold, and its not even hit in the teens at night yet.
Its sat since sunday due too blown brake lines, and i started it on wednesday. It wouldnt start worth a damn. Turned over 3 times then i decided to keep turning it til it finally started a fourth time. Ive never hard started either of my cummins.
It still has the grid heater, which is the one piece manifold/heater plate and I wait for the light to go off before I crank it. Mods are in my sig and it has 0.5" fuel lines.
Up here in Maine it is cold. My truck also took a few extra cranks to start up even after the wait to start light went out.
Remember, diesel starts by compression not ignition. In cold weather it takes more for the fuel to explode. That means a few more cranks before starting is normal.
my truck starts on like half a crank regardless of temp, it could be 90F or 20F, half a crank. my old truck took like 2-3 cranks, as do my dads. I think that depends on starter/battery/engine condition more than anything else.
of course it takes a few minutes to smooth out in the cold
but to answer the OP's question, id look into the condition of the batteries and/or starter. doubt you are losing prime if you have aftermarket lines installed, but its possible
Its my first 12v. My 24 cranked on the first or second but it wasnt just turning over and not on. Two normal almost instant fire ups. My 12v shutters and what not like its been sitting for weeks. Does yours do that? Mine only sat Sun-Wed.
My truck does not shake or feel like it is not running on all cylinders.It does however want some extra foot feed to rev above 500 rpm (perhaps less) until it has run for a little while.
My previous diesel truck felt like it started on 1 cylinder. Then after a short time another cylinder would join in until all of them were firing. I suspected it was either glow plugs (not a cummins), weak compression in some cylinders, or bad injectors.
You shuddering could also be from air getting into the fuel lines. If it did not happen before it got cold it probably is mechanical.
There's no way to know definitively unless you can spend a solid day or two testing different timings with the truck on a dyno. Other than that, you can get the timing tools and DIY, and mess with it until you get the best balance of performance and mileage.
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