Weird noises, no start, then start, corrosion, any ideas?

[turf'd]

Well, some strange goings on have been going on with the Bork. I would appreciate any input/insight into what may be happening to my van.

Earlier in the summer I was moving, lots of trips, stops & starts, about 30 min each way, over 2 week period. When it was finally over, I spent a few days without driving, and it rained quite heavily (for Calgary).

I went to start the van, turned the key, heard some buzzing and rapid clicking coming from the region of the fuse panel, but also the location of the DRL relay (I believe it's located behind the driver's side light, not on the inside of the van). I tried to cycle the glow plugs, but that wasn't working very well either (I would hear the second click the first time I cycled the plugs, but the second & third attempts I'd hear no clicks - mostly in warmer weather - and would have to wait a long time before cycling again). Amid the buzzing and clicking I tried to turn the engine over, which it did, slowly and reluctantly, but then rapidly cut out as all the electronics in the van died. After that, there was nothing except the buzzing and clicking, and even that stopped after a while.

So I try to boost the van. I notice there's some corrosion of the bolts connecting the negative terminals. After connecting the booster cables I see there's current going through the electronics, the engine turns over but very, very slowly, then stops. The cables, at this point, have become extremely hot. I could barely disconnect them and they could have melted through the housing I think, if I'd left them on there much longer.

At this point I'm sure I'm screwed. I'm sure there's some kind of fault somewhere that's grounding out the circuit, draining the battery, and corroding the negative terminals. I have suspicions that it's the DRL, as it was installed behind the light and not inside the van like it should have been. Perhaps there's been some corrosion there, and the wet weather shorted some circuit.

Perhaps it was the batteries. Perhaps they lacked some initial threshold current needed to get things moving. The batteries weren't too old, but maybe they failed to charge or were discharged by the short circuit and were somehow corroding the terminals.

The next day, thinking I had to take the batteries out to get new ones, I open up the 'hood' to start disconnecting things. Before I do, I thought to try to start the van just in case things had magically fixed themselves.

Turns out they had. The batteries delivered enough current (barely) to get the Bork started.

I bought new batteries anyway.

Several weeks passed and the van started up normally (slowly, with lots of smoke). Everything was running smoothly (even without new batteries). One night I fired the van up, drove to the store (short trip), and when I went to start it up again, nothing happened, no clicks, no electrical, nothing. Afraid, I tried again 3 seconds later (after much swearing) and everything came on and the van fired up but the clock had reset itself.

When I went to change the batteries the other day, I noticed more corrosion on the negative terminal bolts. This is disconcerting.

Now I'm worried that there's some random electrical issue going on, possibly related to the DRL or the fuse panel that's shorting out and creating some kind of grounding circuit that's corroding the battery terminal bolts. There's a while chalkish powder on the bolts, and less bolt there all the time. Quite worrisome.

Things are working well now, after the new batteries and a new glow plug (still slow smokey starts though...) but I'm worried there's a large problem hiding somewhere, waiting until I'm far from home in unpleasant weather to spring back into the fore.

Does anyone have any ideas as to where I should start to look? Has anyone had this problem before? How worried should I be about this? Does anyone know what's going on?

Thanks in advance for reading through this overly-long post and any advice/suggestions you can give me!

Cheers!

[jessef]

1st I would pull the DRL harness or whatever you have in there. All of it.

Make sure everything is grounded properly.

Replace the batteries and terminal clamps if need be.

You mentioned the DRL a few times. I would completely eliminate it and diagnose from there.

[bae146]

Second thing to do is make sure your alternator is working. If it is intermittent you will have the symptoms that you describe. When your van is running put a volt meter on the batteries and see what the volts read. You should get over 13 volts at idle. If you rev up the engine a but it should climb to 14 volts or so. If you have access to a clamp on dc ammeter you could put that on the main wire coming form the alternator to the batteries. This will tell you how many amps it it putting out.

[EricN]

Clean all the areas affected by the white death with baking soda/water solution. clean all the connections after that. Put it together and try it.
The reason your glow plugs wont cycle after turning the key on 3 times is the glow controller senses the resistance of the glow plugs based on their heat. When they are too hot, it wont cycle them anymore. This is so you dont burn them out when you keep turning the key on and off/on and off/on and off to try and mask a poor starting issue.

[after oil]

make sure your battery tie down isnt some how shorting out the battery. it was happening to me and to my father in laws jasper. look and see if the bottom of the long bolt, where it hooks into the batt tray is corroded or if there is evidence of arcing. we wrapped the cross pieces of the tie down in bicycle inner tube.
$.02

[turf'd]

I've taken a look at the battery tray and tie downs, they seem to be in good order. I'll clean the corroded areas with baking soda/water and I'll then at least be able to tell if the problem is getting worse or not. I have yet to take the front light out to check the wiring for the DRL, but I shall do that soon.

Thanks for all the advice!


Cheers

[rps13]

I've just started having similar symptoms.

Was driving on the highway the other day and my CD Player just keep turning on and off by itself. I put the turn signal on and my CD player either just stops for a second or 2 or just resets.

Leaving my girlfriends this evening I went to turn the key and nothing. Jumped out to grab a flashlight and jumped back in and it was fine and started fine and drove home fine.

Im going to pop the "hood" tomorrow, test the batteries and remove that DRL module cause I know they cause issues then go from there..

Let me know if you guys find anything else out

[rps13]

Today I elminated my Grote DRL Module and the problem still persists. I turned my 4 way flashers on without the Van running and the dorr open with the dome light on. Everytime the signal would blink the doom light would dim. This leads me to believe it is a battery problem so I'll be buying 2 new Optima Yellows and see what happens from there!

If you guys figure anything else out post it!

-Ben

[rps13]

FIXED!!

Kind of embarrasing to say this. The problem was a loose connection on the positive where the cable runs from the one battery to the 2nd one. All tightened up and as good as new!