[rwhockey29]

trying to work out the last few bugs in my trooper. its a '92 3.2L DOHC auto 4x4. when i bought it, it was completely empty of gas, so i figured that was the reason it took a few seconds to start up. after getting it home and filled up, its still having the problem. so, heres what ive gathered so far:

-when trying to start, it WILL start, just takes 5-10 seconds.
-once running, white smoke comes from the exhaust, as it warms up the smoke disappears(previous owner removed the cat, could be the problem)
-has no problem cranking, new battery, alternator is good as well
-once started, there is a small hint of a gas smell for maybe 15 seconds(not sure if this is a gas leak, or just extra gas from trying to crank it over?)
-last weekend on its first offroad test/drive, made it out to our trails fine. once there, turned it off, then maybe 5 minutes later tried to go run some trails with friends. wouldnt start. tried cranking again, with the hood up so my friend could watch, and he said he saw sparks. upon inspection, the positive battery connector had melted partially and was dripping onto the battery.
-traced positive wire/positive electrical accessory wires back to fuse box, and found both of them cut in the same place, with corrosion in them.(im assuming this is from when the previous owner wrecked it, something must have been pushed into them.

i dug out as much of the corrosion as i could with a knife, installed a new battery terminal connector, and she started right up, better then before. got her home, tried starting her later, and it was hard to start again.

so, im thinking the corrosion is creating too much resistance, cause the battery terminal connector to heat up, hence the melting. the extra resistance would also make it difficult to start. planning on replacing both positive wires this weekend with new ones. as for the smoke, is this just because of the cat being removed, or something else like a head gasket?

thoughts? kinda stuck on this one. not sure where to start?

 

[rwhockey29]

on a side note, she does great once i can get her to start. air shocks make it feel like your not even offroading, and was impossible to get stuck(im going to regret saying that). had to pull out a friends 87 k5 lifted 8" on 35's, then backed up and went through what he got stuck in!

 

[Dae]

Replacing the positive battery cable sounds like a good start. Mine was melted at the alternator.
So just replace the whole cable, and maybe where it leads to the starter.

The fuel smell could be normal. I get that when I start it from cold (runs rich).

 

[rwhockey29]

yea i thought about just trying to repair the wires, but theyre cheap enough its pointless not to just replace them.

im hoping the gas smell/smoke is just because of the cold start. only other thing it does is on a cold start, it idles fine, but has a noticeable shake/vibration for less then a minute. then smoothes out.

 

[Bansil]

Isuzu issued a bulletin on this condition.
Mine does it also.(94 Troop)

If you have to crank more than 5secs after it has sat, the injectors are bleeding down(leaking) into the cyclinders.(hence the vibration)
Corrective action is to replace the injectors.....I just deal with the 10 sec crank to start.

That was a summary of the bulliten,I read it a week or two ago,when i was curious about the extended cranking

 

[rwhockey29]

hmm. didnt know that! do you have a link to the bulletin? ill search for it too.

first things first, im going to replace the battery cables. if that doesnt solve the problem ill look into some new injectors. if the injectors are bleeding, that would be the cause of the gas smell, slow start, vibrations, and possibly some of the smoke. hmm...

 

[Bansil]

hmm. didnt know that! do you have a link to the bulletin? ill search for it too.

first things first, im going to replace the battery cables. if that doesnt solve the problem ill look into some new injectors. if the injectors are bleeding, that would be the cause of the gas smell, slow start, vibrations, and possibly some of the smoke. hmm...

No i dont', I have the a stack of the Isuzu bulletins.....I'll look and see which one it was

 

[mallen]

Replacing the positive battery cable sounds like a good start. Mine was melted at the alternator.
So just replace the whole cable, and maybe where it leads to the starter.

The fuel smell could be normal. I get that when I start it from cold (runs rich).

Just FYI,the way it works is that the part of the wire or connection with the greatest resistance dissipates most of the power delivered through a circuit. For instance,when you plug in a light bulb,the bulb has the most resistance and most power is dissipated in the bulb,and very little in the low resistance wires. (although they do dissipate some as you can feel when you plug a very heavy load into an extension cord) What this means for things like cars is that if there is a poor connection,like a corroded battery terminal or a broken wire in a high current cable thats just barely making contact (like your battery cables) then that part of the connection gets very very hot. Thats why you sometimes will see battery terminal melt. It had a layer of crud on it and was not making good contact with the battery so when you put a few hundred amps through it,a signifigant amount of power was dissipated in the terminal rather than in the starter. (This is also why you sometimes find a old power strip or extension cord blackened or scorched. Its not that it was arcing there (although that can happen to) but usually that the wires were getting really hot there where there was the most resistance at the point where the plug is)

 

[Dae]

^^yup, my positive cable had corrosion all the way to the terminal.
I was aware that resistance from a bad connection would cause it to scorch.

I put some die-electric grease and a new 2GA cable, havent had any problems since.

 

[PolarStar]

Car Talk guys told the story recently when one of their techs accidentally laid a wrench down on the battery. ZIRT ZIRT

Both terminals melted down into the battery

 

[rwhockey29]

checked today on injectors. $600? no thanks. i paid $800 for the entire car. ill replace the batter cables tomorrow. if that doesnt solve the slow start, ill just live with it.

 

[Bansil]

Now you understand why I'm just living with it :lol: mine is $800 truck also.....

 

[Tanman85]

You could pull your injectors and send them out to be serviced, cost about $140. I had it done when I had the top end torn down for some other work and I felt good about putting tested/serviced injectors back in for the life of the vehicle. Here is the website for the company I used.

http://www.rceng.com/Fuel-Injector-Cleaning-P43C0.aspx