Yep. My visor tag says to hold the throttle 1/2-way down above 32* and all the way down if it's below 32*F. This is the 6th winter that I've been playing with 6.2 engines in the cold. I'm pretty comfortable starting the other rigs, and this is the first time at any temperature that the CUCV has failed to start. It shouldn't need a block heater at these temps, IMO, as it was cranking at least twice as fast as the Suburban, which did eventually start (neither rig used the block heater. But I haven't yet checked the condition of the glow plugs on this rig.
But the non-functional glow plug relay is a known issue. I first noticed the problem when I pulled it out of the shed and hauled it up to the Northwoods. I have had to manually jump the relay lugs ever since then. So my real goal in dinking around with it it was to troubleshoot the relay and figure out why it isn't working. I was surprised to find that the plugs weren't warming when manually caused the relay to flip. The P.O. added a button isolating the relay from the stock GP controller. So if you push the button it connected to the controller, but most of the time the circuit was dead. This was annoying, as the button could not force the plugs to actually warm. And when they did, it ran the old short cycle that the 9G plugs required. It's really nice to have manual control of the plugs in the other rigs (much faster than waiting for the plugs to warm up on the short cycle). I don't have much motivation to rewire the controller to increase the cycle time. My finger does a fine job.
Prior to the glow plug issue, I've had this truck in storage for 3 years. 2 or 3 times each year I've gone out to start it up, and it has always fired right off. Much more nicely than Big Blue. Even with sitting. I'm quite confident that it will be easy to start when I trace down this electrical issue. The high cranking speed is really neat.
