Manual glow plug button good temp fix?

IDIBRONCO said:

Assuming that you have some glow plugs burned out, the more you use your truck without all 8 glow plugs working, the faster the rest will burn out. You will soon be without any working glow plugs.

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If I can put it off, even a month or two, it would help. A year is a stretch, I admit. You are supposed to replace all 8 at the same time anyway, so if another one or two go, so be it. They all get replaced anyway.

But it just depends on how soon the others would burn out, I suppose. It's almost like I have none now, the way it acts in the 40s or below, since they come on for all of 3 seconds maximum. It's nowhere near enough. I have to crank it a lot, with breaks in between to give the starter rests, until it finally fires up. That's not good for the engine, I'm sure.

Then I have to also give it a little throttle too. The temp sensor by the thermostat pipe has a broken off blade. I bought a new sensor for it months ago, but it didn't matter in summer so I put it off. When I went to finally put it in, I realized that you have to pull the vacuum pump, alternator and their bracket, drain half the coolant, remove the thermostat to radiator hose pipe and then you can get at the sensor. That stupid pipe is right in the way!

But back to glow plugs .... I will be getting the proper Motorcraft ZD9 ones, since I've read that cheaper ones swell and can break off when trying to get them out. I don't know what it has in it right now, so... that's something else to worry about until all 8 come out without breaking.

If I can spend $10-15 to patch it up for a month or two, that's ideal financially right now. I will be heading to Arizona for the winter, so if they burn out enough while I'm there, so be it. I can order the plugs from Amazon and install them while I'm there. It seems to largely be favored by folks here to have a manual switch ANYWAY, so it's not exactly wasted money.

I'm trying to get away from kicking things down the road credit wise. That's why I'm having to pay so much on credit right now to avoid interest on 6-month-no-interest promotions. I kept stacking more up saying "I'll pay it later, it's no problem" but then something else came up (such as the alternator, the vacuum pump and pulley puller tool from Napa, and a set of tires...) so I need to try to avoid excessive spending if at all possible right now. Yes, $75 to me is "excessive" at the moment, considering it's going to cost me about $270, give or take, to get down to Arizona from here. Once I'm there, I'll be there for several months, so I'll be able to afford the plugs in December.

I've been bumming around a city in Washington for 2.5 months now (as in, street parking overnight), and so far I haven't been bugged any but I can't rely on that lasting forever. Especially with an out of state license plate. Plus its getting really rainy here now, which isn't something my dog enjoys since she can't get outside much.

So basically, a cheap patch to last me a month or two is all I need at the moment.

As for the manual switch, I have one and like it. Others don't care for it at all. I think it's just preference. While you do have to drain the antifreeze to replace that "sensor", that's all you have to do. You can take a shallow 7/8", 3/8" drive socket on a long extension and hammer it down on to it. I say hammer meaning use something like a dead blow or a rubber mallet. You have to force it on so that the spades on top will bend over. You need a shallow socket for clearance, but you can use this to remove it. Then you can use an open end wrench to install the new one so that you don't damage the spades on the new one. It WILL be tight, but you can install it with the wrench. You don't actually need to drain any coolant, but you will lose enough to make a big mess under your truck so you might as well go ahead and drain it in the first place.

How do you even fit an open ended wrench down there? It doesn’t seem like it’s possible.

I installed my electronic water temp sensor without draining. Yeah it made a mess but oh well. It was in a parking lot (after cooling down a couple hours) but eh it wasn’t too bad. I put it in the factory dummy light sensor location, leaving the factory gauge connected as a backup since it gives me a general idea of the normal range, around the N and left side of the O.

Manual glow plugs been running my my truck for years now, just wired a switch activte the solinoid, I forget what I did for my wait start light comes on too so I don't forget to turn them off mines a actual switch I already had a panel of them and a few werent used YET lol 15 seconds probably won't kill them I've left mine on for 15 minutes once and a couple times for maybe 5.. all 8 operational as far as I know but haven't checked them in a couple years trucks starts fine everyday even at 0 degrees it's started not plugged in(a little rough but 0 is kinda cold lol) I also just unhooked all the wires to my controller and the relay only turns on glow plugs and wait to start light, no chopping of wires so I can have the option of wiring up original later if desired.

I added the push button on mine and I'm going to leave it for 2 reasons !; the cost of the controller 2; once you've gotten your engine warmed up you no longer need the glow plugs so I saw no reason for the glow plugs to come on and in turn the plugs last longer

IDIBRONCO said:

Assuming that you have some glow plugs burned out, the more you use your truck without all 8 glow plugs working, the faster the rest will burn out. You will soon be without any working glow plugs.

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I don't see that ever happening. The more glowplugs that burn out, the shorter the controller burns them. That's why the truck will not start.

I had a busy winter a couple of years ago, and in the middle of that mess I had 3 glowplugs burn out on me. I didn't realize they were champion junk the previou owner had installed until later when I pulled them out in the spring, but I had the pushbutton in it at the time, and even with 3 burnt out glowplugs, the engine always started. It would miss and smoke and throw a fit for about 30 seconds, till the cold cylinders that were not firing slowly started to contribute. But it would start and run on the 5 till the other 3 warmed up.

Maybe I was told wrong, but I was told that the other glow plugs take on extra electrical load. Maybe that's only for the 6.9 style controller? Cubey, you don't have to have the wrench laying flat. You can have it up at an angle. You don't have to use as much force to tighten it back up as you do to loosen it the first little bit. You may have to remove the brace that runs down from the fuel filter head to the engine lift bracket if yours is still there. You can also buy a shorty wrench to help get in there.

The way the 7.3 style works, as I understand it, is that it measures resistance overall. If even just one plug goes bad in terms of resistance vs the rest, the controller thinks they are all fully heated up in the time it takes the bad one to hit the cutoff resistance mark, making it cut off too soon. It might be because of my broken sensor too? I’m not sure. A manual switch would at least solve the plug heating time problem (for now).

Cubey said:

If I can put it off, even a month or two, it would help. A year is a stretch, I admit. You are supposed to replace all 8 at the same time anyway, so if another one or two go, so be it. They all get replaced anyway.

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Eh, I just replace them as they fail. Worked for me.

Just check each with a piece of wire to B+, and look for sparks as you touch the glow plug connector/end.
If it sparks, it's good. No sparks = bad.

You'll know really quickly if you can pull one or not; autolites are the only ones I've had trouble with.

You probably have only 2-3 dead plugs; replace two and it should start nicely again. You might even just have a loose/corroded wire/connector, which is an even cheaper fix.

Cubey said:

The way the 7.3 style works, as I understand it, is that it measures resistance overall. If even just one plug goes bad in terms of resistance vs the rest, the controller thinks they are all fully heated up in the time it takes the bad one to hit the cutoff resistance mark, making it cut off too soon. It might be because of my broken sensor too? I’m not sure. A manual switch would at least solve the plug heating time problem (for now).

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That is sort of how it works. It measures the current flowing through the controller to the plugs. That is what that "Z" strip is for. The brain in the controller uses the Z strip to measure how much current is flowing to the plugs. The more they heat up, the less current flows through, so when the flow gets to a certain point it will start cycling the plugs. If you have one less plug working, that is a whole plug's current flow that is missing, so that fools the brain, it will start cutting the whole system off early because the current flow is less.

You are correct in a way, as the plugs heat up, their resistance rises. That is what lessens the current flow through the controller.

I will 2nd the manual switch. Bypassing the Controller gives you a much more robust system. You can get packs of 30a rated momentary switches for a couple dollars per switch. I have been running a 3$ manual grounding switch to trigger the GP Relay for almost 2 years now. I have yet to have even a hiccup. The longevity of a manual switching setup is entirely how you build it. Crimp connectors and exposed wire leads will lead to a short lived, problematic system. Solder joints, insulated connections, heat shrink tubing over everything will give you an extremely simply and robust system, much less to fail when compared to the factory controller. Simple will almost always lead to a more reliable setup.

After another hard start this morning, I finally went by O’Reilly and got a roll of wire and a momentary push button switch. I had a $10 off $20 coupon so I grabbed a 32oz bottle of PowerSource diesel fuel supplement too. $15 for everything... not bad. Got the supplement for $1 basically.

Here’s the wire and switch. I should have gotten yellow wire instead of red. Oh well. I have derp moments like that. I’ll mark it with something.

I just gotta wait a couple hours for it to cool off before I go leaning and reaching around in there. The cover is already missing (or was never there?) over the controller so it should be pretty easy. I can see the terminals with the air cleaner installed.

If you mean the cover that slips on and covers the relay connections then replace that ASAP. I had a massive electrical issue in my truck because my throttle cable contacted those terminals due to the PO losing the cover. ended up roasting a whole lot in my electrical harness that I had to deal with.

Cubey said:

After another hard start this morning, I finally went by O’Reilly and got a roll of wire and a momentary push button switch. I had a $10 off $20 coupon so I grabbed a 32oz bottle of PowerSource diesel fuel supplement too. $15 for everything... not bad. Got the supplement for $1 basically.

Here’s the wire and switch. I should have gotten yellow wire instead of red. Oh well. I have derp moments like that. I’ll mark it with something.

I just gotta wait a couple hours for it to cool off before I go leaning and reaching around in there. The cover is already missing (or was never there?) over the controller so it should be pretty easy. I can see the terminals with the air cleaner installed.

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After you get it all hooked up, watch the volt gauge(I have forgotten what year you have, mine is a 89 with the voltmeter) when you push the button, it will drop to around 8v. That is also verification that most of the glowplugs are working and drawing current, drawing the battery voltage down in the process.

If you want to be really easy on the glowplugs, you can count to 5, crank it for a few rounds, stop and hold the button for 5 more, and crank it over again. In the spring and summer this is usually enough to start. In the winter you may have to count to 7 or 8, or try 3 times. You are in control, you can do it however you want. I have even tried counting to 5, cranking it, and then while I keep cranking it, push the button in at the same time. When you do that you can hear the starter slow a little bit, but it keeps cranking and it usually starts right up. I have not experimented with this much, because I have put my pushbutton on the right side of the steering column in the cubby area. So I have to cross my arms over to crank the switch and push the button. If I had put the button on the left side of the column area, it would be much easier to work the button while working the keyswitch too.

The switch is installed. The WTS light doesn’t come on for some reason, but I can hear it click on when I press the button and voltage drops to about 11.5v until I let go. I know it used to drop more, so yeah I have one or more bad plugs. But in any case, it’s done for now.