We worked on the truck over the weekend. I found that the last owner of
the truck, (The state of New hampshire) replaced all the glow plug wire
terminals with poorly crimped on ones. Most of these were badly rotted
and loose. We replaced four glow plugs and I soldered new terminals to
those wires. The plugs on the other side of the engine didn't look as
bad as the ones I replaced so we left them for the time being. One
battery wire was burned and loose in its connector. We cut off the
connector. tinned the battery wire with good solder and installed a
replacement connector. One glow plug though, the one closest to the
firewall on the passenger side had a broken terminal and was so badly
rusted that we could not get a wrench on it so we had to forgoe
replacing it for the time being. We also replaced the batteries with
two Optima dry cells which have a CCC of 1000A. and without bleeding
the lines I wasn't expecting much. I put a voltmeter on the batteries
and read 12.6V. We turned on the key and that dropped to 11.5V
indicating that the glow plugs were on. The wait light went out after
about 10 seconds but the voltmeter stayed at 11.5 V. This was puzzling
but we cranked the engine and noted that the battery voltage dropped to
10.2V, (a far cry from the 8.4 V the other batteries read while
cranking),  and although cranking seemed slow, lo and behold the truck
started! It sputtered a bit at first but soon began to run very well.
After about almost a minute there was a loud "clunk" sort of sound the
the battery voltage came up to about 12.2V indicating that perhaps the
glow plug circuit was off. I will put a meter right on the plugs next
time to confirm this but there seems to be something not right with
that whole scenario. It would seem that the excessive battery load
should have dropped after the glow plug timing period of nine seconds
shouldn't it? The other more obvious problem is that at 12.2V running
voltage the batteries do not seem to be charging. I'll have to look
into that too. This truck was apparently modified from 24V I'm told.
The alternator has a bat terminal a single small guage wire connected
to a single terminal; and a two wire connector also. Does this
alternator sound like a common one?  Does anyone know where I might
find a schematic diagram of the charging circuit used with this? I'm an
electronics technician so I'm not too concerned with troubleshooting
electrical problems if I can find suitable documentation. There is
however one other issue ( besides the brake line that popped when we
finally moved the truck). There is engine oil slowly leaking out from
an area around the upper rear passenger side.of the engine. We thought
that it was one of the engine oil cooler lines at first. I got
underneath and you can see the two enginge oil cooler lines and they do
not have fresh oil on them but its crowded up in there so its hard to
tell. It does not seem to be one of the lines. It seems to be coming
from the top left side of the engine. I'm wondering if perhaps from
sitting for 7 months could it be that the very back area of a valve
cover gasket just dried up? What else up in that area would ooze oil
out and down that back left side of the engine and drip on the exhaust
pipe? I can't imagine that it could be a cracked block but if it is a
valve cover gasket it looks very difficult to get at. I wonder if
running the truck up to operating temperature may soften up the gasket,
that is if this is whats happening and somewhat seal this leak up. We
never had a leak there.before. Any further thoughts on this saga
especially the leak would be most sincerely appreciated. Lenny Stein.