poor electrical connections

The subject of poor electrical connections has been brought up here quite a bit so I thought I'd share another story. My son's company has a mid-90's International 9400 semi with a N14 Cummins. It got so It would only start with a whiff of ether. It cranked fine, just wouldn't fire up. After it was running it ran pretty good. He checked fuel lines and filters, even temporarily put a clear hose in the fuel suck line to check for bubbles. He did find a few things that needed attention in the fuel delivery system but fixing them didn't help. He finally took it to a truck repair that favors Internationals and Cummins. They plugged the laptop in and found low voltage to the ECM. The mechanic started digging and found a broken end on a battery cable at the starter so only one cable was doing the job. There are two cables coming from the batteries to the starter as some of you truck guys know. The ECM gets it's power from the starter solenoid and there was just enough voltage drop with that one cable end broken to screw up the ECM so it wouldn't turn the fuel on. A new cable end solved it, but they went ahead and ran new power straight off the battery to the ECM, fused of course, to help keep the voltage up while it's cranking. That cable with the broken eye on the end just nestled down with the rest of the cables and looked perfectly normal, and the engine still cranked like a champ but wouldn't fire. It can be frustrating.

We have several freightliners with dump silage
boxes. While chopping in Kentucky one of these
trucks would run OK for awhile then just die. Let it
set for a few hours and it would repeat the process
only would run less time each time it cycled. One of
our youngsters swapped out sensors one at a time
until they had swapped Evey sensor, nothing fixed
it. After he gave up I was ask to look at it. This
truck had two battery cables to the starter. One
from the left two batteries, one from the right two.
The cable from the left two batteries had broken off
at the solenoid terminal. The ECM drew its power
directly from the left two batteries which were no
longer being charged due to the broken connection at
the starter. I had taken the truck for a drive back
through fields so when it died I wouldn't be
stranded on the road. I had to walk quite a distance
back to the buildings to get jumper cables. I jumped
from the right set of batteries to the left, after
which the truck ran great. I installed a new cable
end, and the trucks still runs fine.

Larry, my son's personal truck used to be a 2004 International 9200. The EPA mandated clean burning computerized engine with it's little nit picking problems kept him off the road so often he sold it and bought a 94 Freightliner glider with a good old fashioned non-electronic Cat engine. I'm not saying Cat is the way to go, but this truck has been as reliable as the day is long engine wise and it runs from 3:30 AM till 3:30 PM five days a week. That sweet smelling 2004 struggled to get 5 MPG. Now he gets 6 MPH from an old fashioned engine that smokes a little.