Injectors, crossover tubes, but more then likely injectors. Or you can do a search and see what else is said, oh by the way these trucks will fire up on their own down to about 10 with no grid heaters.

 

Sounds like injectors to me too. Verify lift pump pressure and check the PRV on top of the rail. If those are good. Hook up a scan tool and see what rail pressure is when cranking. The ECM needs to see a certain rail pressure before firing. If you can't build enough rail pressure it's most likely do to internally worn injectors (high return rates). If the truck has high miles, that's what I'd put my money on. Mine went out at 113k miles.

 

pressure @crank is min 4k to 4500k

 

Thanks for that. I had done some searching and from what I had read, it seemed that if the injectors were going bad that they tended to smoke real bad. His doesn't smoke. So I wasn't thinking injectors at all.

The truck has about 120,000 miles on it, which isn't real high for these motors and it runs great once it starts. He gets crazy good gas mileage too. He and my mom went on a drive last weekend and he said he was getting close to 27mpg on the highway. And last year they drove from PA to Utah and were getting close to that for most of the trip, especially once he hit the really flat lands west of the Mississippi River. Granted, neither of these trips were they loaded down or towing anything. But still...my 2013 only gets around 20 mpg highway in the winter and 22mpg or so in the summer.

 

My 03 did the same thing, crank no start when cold. It turned out to be the injectors had high return rates, no other sign of injector failer, no smoking or knocking. There is a lot of good info on this site to help diagnose and fix your concern, search high injector return rate, somewhere there is a write up on the procedure to test and replace injectors.

 

Cummins forum good people to help you with anything from woman to the question of life.

 

Try this

My 03 does same, only will start if plugged in. Have him try holding throttle to floor, usually will start. My mechanic who works on our big Cummins at work cannot test for bad injectors, need to go to ram dealer. Not to trusting of this option.

 

The OEM factory Bosch original injectors did not have hardened wear resistance corrosion resistant return valves. US low quality ULSD diesel ate them up.

Taking a Ram Cummins to dealer for motor work is like going to street meth whore for sex. Gonna come home with motor infected with disease and very unsatisfied.