So my truck was new to me two years ago and was kind of hard to start on the cold mornings after sitting outside all night. I knew previous owner and battery was new right before I bought it. Last summer I changed out the spark plugs and that seemed to have helped with the cold starts for most mornings. Today was only the second time this year it has given me any trouble. Temps this morning were -20F. So when I go to start it the truck turns over fine but I have to depress the gas pedal a little to get it to start. I also have to feather the gas a few seconds to keep it running. After that it runs perfect. Truck just rolled over 100K miles few weeks ago. Wondering what you guys thought it might be. Any advice/input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

Sorry, its a 2000 f150 7700 with a 5.4N

 

It's 20 below out. Problem solved.

I am in the same weather here in MN today, I will be very surprised if my Econoline doesn't take some "doing" to get started this morning, as for my pickup, its been sitting outside since Tuesday, unstarted and I'm taking it further up north tonight, so we'll see how that goes too.

 

A block heater would help quite a bit, and try to get ethanol-free fuel. It wouldn't hurt to clean your IAC. Are you using 5W20 oil?

 

Get some fuel treatment to add to your gas. You prolly have fuel line freeze up. This will slove that problem.

 

A second vote for a block heater.

 

Yup 5 20 oil. How hard is a block heater to add? IAC, is that on the throttle body? Just had to clean the one on my car.

 

Yea, IAC's can take a hit in cold weather with the 5fours. That's if you run the engine in short drive cycles or just idle it for awhile and shut it down. This promotes sludging under the cam covers and you can't get away from it, other than driving longer distances so the engines has time to rid itself of bi-product,- moisture. This isn't a problem unless you do it continuously. The bad in all that is the PCV valve, system and IAC can freeze up. The IAC on the 5fours is at the back of the TB elbow. The PCV line is right next to it, so yea, the IAC can be attacked thru that line. If you notice, the 99+ PCV lines have an insulator wrapped around the line. That's due to the 97/98 problem in the past. In 2000, they went so far as to equip these engines with a cold climate system, where a coolant line wraps around the PCV valve itself. Both additions where to combat cold climate problems. The 4six IAC however, is at the front drivers side of the TB elbow which doesn't end up compromised from cold weather.

 

It was about thirty below here in WI mine took a bit to get started. Honestly I wouldn't worry about it the colder it gets the less potential for work your battery has, the stiffer your engine and fluids are. Hard cold starts are almost inevitable when you live in the north. Get a block heater, or even better a heated shop.

 

If a block heater isn't an option, a battery charger will make a huge difference as well. I recently charged all the batteries on all four of my cars, and starting has been much easier.

 

Being in central Alberta and spending weeks at a time in -20 to -30 celcius (-22F for those to the south) I can tell you no car in Canada is sold without a block heater. That beign said short of plugging it in my 01 starts up every morning to go to work in that weather without an issue. Hit the button on the remote start and done. Makes some new noises when it's that cold but thats it, no fuel additives or anything special.

 

I think I will just tuff it out one more winter. Hopefully my car I have been working on will be done by this summer. Then it can go into storage next winter and my truck will finally have a garage stall.

 

The only potential block heater problems to watch for is, they can leak. I haven't seen that personally, but read about it a few times.

 

I have the 02 7700 truck and I just bought a circulating tank heater for mine. That's what i would do if i were you. I'm just waiting for a day that's nice outside to install it.