M998 starting issue

[Jasonwarda]

Hello all,. It's my first post so bear with me. I purchased my M998 in Septemberer 17'. I was told it needed new glo plugs. I replaced them and still had starting issues. Using this site I determined it was my smart start box. I purchased a new one with a new sensor. Everything worked perfectly until recently. I noticed hard starting and my wait light was not staying on as long. Seemed to be a battery issue, which was correct. I replaced both batteries and everything worked great again. I noticed that my voltage guage kept showing lower and lower readings over a week or so. Then yesterday I found not get it started. I have balanced the voltage on the alternator and pours out correct voltage when running. Any thoughts as to what else it could be?

 

[ken]

I would start looking at the grounds first. A lot of electrical problems on these come from bad grounds. Disconnect the batteries first. So you don't fry your smart box. Then clean the grounds on the back of the engine and the wire that goes from there, to the firewall by the fuel filter. Along with any other ground wire you can find. There is a post on a upgrade ground kit. You might want to consider that also.

 

[papakb]

I can't stress strongly enough that you need to build or buy and install the supplemental ground kit. Your going to save yourself lots of headaches down the line. These vehicles need it more than almost any other. There are plenty of instructions posted around the web on how to put one together and a couple good places to get the finished product.

 

[Jasonwarda]

I'll do some research on the ground kit,. How can I pay a picture on here? I have some sort of resistor in the battery compartment that I'm not sure if the function

 

[papakb]

That's not a rersistor per se but it is a current shunt that developes a small voltage across it when the vehicle is drawing current from the batteries. That voltage shows up on pins in the STE/ICE connector next to the shifter and is used by the STE/ICE test set to determine how much current is flowing on the system. It is in the circuit so you want to make sure the connections to it are clean and tight.

Pictures: If you hover your mouse over the next the the last icon on the bar just above the area you enter your text into you will see a square to the right of the circle with the red X in it. Click on that and it will open up a dialog box asking where you want to get the picture from. Select your picture and then click on upload. If the pictures are too large or too small you need to resize them before you upload them.