No start/Hard start/White smoke/EESS Do and Dont's

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No start/Hard start/White smoke/EESS Do and Dont's

Post by Retired War Horses » Fri Dec 27, 2013 7:48 am

I see post after post after post with these same issues, you guys really need to look up in the archives past issues because this one comes up every month....now, this starting system is not difficult, but you MUST and I repeat MUST start with known good parts. I for one use the Kascar non-swell glow plugs, while they are expensive, I have never had an issue after numerous trucks. The EESS box, I always use KDS yellow label with matching yellow banded Temp Sender Unit (TSU)...this is not a glow plug controller as some folks call it, the TSU replaced the GPC as the GPC was a weak point and failed often.
The TSU just sends a signal based on engine temp that says either turn on the glow plugs for 6-8 seconds or doesn't, quite simple. NOW, if your EESS is a GREEN Label, NO TSU is Required, the glow plugs cycle every time at startup regardless of engine temp, I don't see many green label box but I have a few in my stock I use for trouble shooting.

Today I am seeing a lot of the new S3 EESS boxes on eBay, these are the latest generation of box, I now have all my trucks running this box and they work quite nicely, no more glow plug afterglow where the gen bounces up and down for 2 mins after cold start, you can tell this box by the extra maintenance connector on the front for Diagnostic equipment to plug into. I have several of these new boxes, they are either Nartron or KDS, each come with there own TSU but I have found any of the KDS or Narton TSUs work, they are backward compatible, again, TSU, Not GPC glow plug controller....The GPC is for the old PCB "Protective control box" aka Prestolite.

Then there is the SSI box (Lau Ind. boxes), I would never use one of these, never had any luck, also, make sure you don't have one of the early versions where the glow plug connector plugs direct into this box, so you would have 3 plugs on this box, 2 for the body wiring harness and one for the separate glow plug harness...theses boxes are a no no, they had a habit of actully starting the truck on its own, several motor pools had hmmwv's burn to the ground.

So now you have a good EESS box, good glow plugs, now go clean off every ground on the truck....dash, gen, all the lights, starter, engine, all the gauges etc...now make up a grounding harness, you can buy them from Kascar or make your own.
think of an octopus, where the head of the octopus is the start point, in this case the engine, on the left rear cylinder is the ground termination, starting from there, run a wire to each of theses locations:
1. Alternator ground bolt
2. One of the bolts that mounts the EESS box
3. To the stud on the firewall that feeds all the instrument gauges, you should have cleaned this ground so you know where it is. You
have to take the inst cluster out to get to it.the stud passes through to the engine area near the fuel filter, one of the body harness grounds terminates there.
4. The starter ground

All 4 of these connections can be terminated into on large 2/0 solderless connector that has a 3/8 lug to bolt up to the engine head. Now everything you need to run is grounded.
I have had trucks that would do all of the issues you guys post about fixed with just this harness, I have eaten my fair share of boxes as well, bad boxes will eat glow plugs, but the Kascar plugs have a thermo limiter like the civ AC 60G glow plug, you can't burn them up, Wellman is the Mfg I see that the goverment gets there hmmwv glows from, every DRMO engine I have ever received be it 6.2, 6.5 or Turbo diesel all have the Wellman 24v GP's installed.

hope this helps.
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Re: No start/Hard start/White smoke/EESS Do and Dont's

Post by Ted Gates » Fri Dec 27, 2013 8:17 am

I would add the following for the ground harness.

5 point harness:
point 1- left rear head ground terminal
point 2 label A - 25" TO DASH
point 3 label B - 33" TO GENERATOR GROUND
Point 4 label C - 35" TO CONTROL BOX MOUNTING BOLT
Point 5 label D - 73" TO STARTER GROUND

I have the mwo instructions at home and can scan them to a pdf for use.

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Re: No start/Hard start/White smoke/EESS Do and Dont's

Post by Retired War Horses » Fri Dec 27, 2013 8:23 am

I find the Lengths are custom..I say this cuz 73in to the starter leaves alot of unwanted wire...The others Lengths are Ok.
It just depends on the Routing of the cable a user might take to accomplish the same thing. But Yes....We need a Sticky.
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Re: No start/Hard start/White smoke/EESS Do and Dont's

Post by unimog-guy » Mon Mar 02, 2015 9:14 am

Any chance you could post a picture of the different boxes showing what is what?

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Re: No start/Hard start/White smoke/EESS Do and Dont's

Post by snock » Tue Sep 22, 2015 4:43 am

NOW, if your EESS is a GREEN Label, NO TSU is Required, the glow plugs cycle every time at startup regardless of engine temp, I don't see many green label boxes but I have a few in my stock I use for trouble shooting.
The green label KDS boxes have no temperature feedback so they do not actually know if the engine is already hot. These boxes make an assumption that if the truck was just turned off that it is already hot and will not run the glow plugs on the next start if it has been less than 10 minutes or so. Disconnecting power to the truck will not reset this condition since evidently it's stored in EEPROM in the microcontroller. You need to restore power to the truck and just let it sit for 10+ minutes at which point the box will timeout and return to normal. You'll notice that the wait light will quickly flash once when you put the switch in run when it's in this mode.
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Re: No start/Hard start/White smoke/EESS Do and Dont's

Post by schindop » Sat Nov 05, 2016 8:22 am

So who has a yellow tag box for sale at a reasonable price? That is what I am current using and having great luck with. Need a back up just in case. Sounds like the new ESS box is expensive. -Peter
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Re: No start/Hard start/White smoke/EESS Do and Dont's

Post by Retired War Horses » Sat Nov 05, 2016 9:35 am

I only install the S3....I have had no issues without them and it rids you of after glow on the GP's.
Expensive? I guess that's just all relative. There is a reason they came out with a new version.
But being it's the heart of the starting system, I have no problem being worry free.
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Re: No start/Hard start/White smoke/EESS Do and Dont's

Post by Gadget » Thu Nov 17, 2016 7:51 am

unimog-guy wrote:Any chance you could post a picture of the different boxes showing what is what?

With descriptions on each pic. Would be fantastic

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Re: No start/Hard start/White smoke/EESS Do and Dont's

Post by Retired War Horses » Thu Nov 17, 2016 8:29 am

86 humv already has a thread from some time ago with all that data and pics.
I have no time to gather up, post pics descriptions of all these.
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Re: No start/Hard start/White smoke/EESS Do and Dont's

Post by cptnblk » Thu Dec 01, 2016 6:42 am

Thank you for this information, it is very helpful!! Is there any reason to fix the Hard Start/White Smoke? If it runs, it runs, right?

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Re: No start/Hard start/White smoke/EESS Do and Dont

Post by Retired War Horses » Thu Dec 01, 2016 7:19 am

cptnblk wrote:Thank you for this information, it is very helpful!! Is there any reason to fix the Hard Start/White Smoke? If it runs, it runs, right?


Why would you want a hard starting, white smoke billowing Hmmwv? White smoke is unburnt fuel, thus...that's washing your cylinder walls down of any needed lubrication causing accelerated wear. Not to mention your starter getting worked over.
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Re: No start/Hard start/White smoke/EESS Do and Dont

Post by cptnblk » Tue Dec 13, 2016 3:29 pm

6110-01-542-7901 is the the proper NSN number for the S3 box.

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Re: No start/Hard start/White smoke/EESS Do and Dont's

Post by benalco1 » Sat Mar 09, 2019 3:55 am

snock wrote:
Tue Sep 22, 2015 4:43 am
NOW, if your EESS is a GREEN Label, NO TSU is Required, the glow plugs cycle every time at startup regardless of engine temp, I don't see many green label boxes but I have a few in my stock I use for trouble shooting.
The green label KDS boxes have no temperature feedback so they do not actually know if the engine is already hot. These boxes make an assumption that if the truck was just turned off that it is already hot and will not run the glow plugs on the next start if it has been less than 10 minutes or so. Disconnecting power to the truck will not reset this condition since evidently it's stored in EEPROM in the microcontroller. You need to restore power to the truck and just let it sit for 10+ minutes at which point the box will timeout and return to normal. You'll notice that the wait light will quickly flash once when you put the switch in run when it's in this mode.
I have the KDS green label box and it is doing exactly as you describe.... it’s almost like the EEMPROM is not restring to allow normal operation. All glow plugs test fine. Is there anyway to reset these boxes internally?... or would the box be considered bad?

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Re: No start/Hard start/White smoke/EESS Do and Dont's

Post by Retired War Horses » Sat Mar 09, 2019 7:34 am

Every start box from the trucks inception has had issues, the current S3 EESS is AFAIC the culmination of lessons learned
From past failures. I won’t install anything else in my own trucks or in my customers trucks...there are no serviceable parts.
Also, the green label was the shortest lived issuance of any of the EESS boxes, that should tell you something.
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Re: No start/Hard start/White smoke/EESS Do and Dont's

Post by sirhrmechanic » Mon Oct 26, 2020 8:44 am

Excellent and thank you!

I can't recall if I was one of the folks who asked the question... but it is on my punch list to figure out the issue with hard start white smoke!

I very much appreciate the input!

Cheers,

Sirhr


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