Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire F250 7.3 Starting issues

I suspect my starter solenoid is acting up on my 7.3 Diesel with 265,000 miles. What confuses me is it only quits working when the motor is at normal operating temps. Shut it off it won't start again. Let it cool for 2-3 hours and it cranks right up. I've never seen the solenoid be affected by heating/cooling cycles.

Anyone else?

265 thousand miles? Time for a new starter. Couple hundred bucks, make sure you pull the battery terminals before you start. You'll probably need both metric and American wrenches. I think the big bolts are 17mm. The wire leads on the solenoid are American, and the 5/16 to the little wire is a real pain in the patootie.

Kind of what I thunk too. I have definitely seen starters highly affected by heating/cooling cycles.

Sounds like the same thing that was going on with my buddies F350 7.3, he changed the starter and the problem has gone away.

The engine is harder to start when hot.

Check the batteries first.

When hot, does it crank?

No. It does nothing but light up the dash.

Let it cool & it fires right up.

I reckon 265000 is about all one could expect from the original starter.

Temperature can wreak havoc on all things electrical. I had a throttle sensor go bad in my Grand Cherokee a few months ago, but it would only act up after driving it for 15 minutes or so. Let it cool down and it would work fine again.

Quite the opposite, actually. Electrical resistance does, however, increase with a rise in temperature, and electrical components are more likely to fail when hot.

I would have the batteries checked at a Ford house first.
How old are the batteries?
Amp drop from max. is not good for starting.

It's time then. IIRC, the solenoid is inside the starter and cannot be replaced separately. It takes ~45 minutes.

I guess I mean the fact that it starts cool/cold but not hot is something to think about.

In my drag racing days, starting a warmed up high compression 454 Chevrolet was a sometimes thing. Heat would destroy those starters in a short period of time. Let 'em cool and it'd crank right up.

Well then go spend the money on the starter and let us know if that cured the problem.

Just ordered it. I'll report the results.

Thanx for ya'lls input.

The farmer down the road got 247,000 out of his starter on his
7.3 F250, same symptoms. I would consider that a fairly good life expectancy.

Yeah, at least it gave me fair warning instead of just croaking while on a road trip.

I used to have a 2000 model F250 Superduty with the 7.3. Traded it off when it had about 216,000 on it and diesel was over 4 bucks a gallon. Still had the original starter but was facing a complete front-end rebuild (ball joints, spindles, etc.). It never left me stranded but once when the cam position sensor decided to go TU at a little over 100K miles, it died on me seven times within 5 miles.

Fair warning? Exactly. On our plow 350, and spare truck, the solenoid went funny on us two years ago, at about 180,000. We pulled it, beat on it in the vise, then re-installed it.
Then middle of summer, it started cranking slower than usual, we changed to synth oil which helped. So we were suspecting toasty batteries, but when we put them on the checker thing, they read fine. Then a couple of weeks ago, she no start me needum bump.
As I was planning to borrow the truck for a ROAD TRIP, I decided to replace it with a "better" rebuilt rather than just park on hills.
Wow, that motor spins so fast now it's amazing.