Well I put the ZD1A glow plugs in less than 500 miles ago. 5 out of 8 are bad already. I have a manual control for the glow plugs which i only do 10 seconds max with. Anyone else have this kind of failure rate? The old Autolites that i took off were all good when I removed them to replace because of others telling of nightmares with them. Non were blown at the tips just did not work. I have ordered new Delphi glow plugs to replace the ZF1A's. Has anyone had this kind of failures on the Motorcraft ZF1A's?
Thanks
Ron435
I've had several kinds of counterfeits. I've used the Bosch and Autolite versions too, which in my experience don't last and are sometimes a problem to extract - others use them without issue.
In the end make a best guess as to the right parts. For me, in one case the hole punched in the bag was the give away, in another - it was the lack of Beru markings on the barrel. In yet a third case, mushroomed and broke off the tip which went down and rested on the piston, and required a shop to use the exhaust valve compression + vacuum method to extract.
In this case - "start with a good close visual inspection" - applies to the parts. FWIW, Amazon took them back, but appeared to completely ignore my assertion they were fakes or mislabeled - even tho the bag was clearly labeled ZD1A - but inside the bag were ZD9 bullet end plugs. Further inspection found that some sourced from RockAuto - lacked Beru markings or part numbers were painted not stamped. While I don't bench test them - I do test resistance.
After my supply of ZD1A's is gone... I will defensively make the upgrade to the ZD9 harness and controller. My two month experience trying to fish the tip off the top of the piston, taught me a lot about how easy it would be to grenade the engine. Yes, there are stories here about running the engine to pass the tip through, I don't think "insanely lucky" accurately describes the odds of that turning out well.
Some of the discussion on my experience, with some relevant links:
Since you can only buy SIX at a time from AMZN, I used two accounts. Out of the 12 plugs ordered in total only ONE is a spade. Since I now have 11 ZD9's, I would just change the harness and controller to the 87-92 version - but the labeling makes me think none of these are actual Motorcraft...
www.oilburners.net
