glow plug help

[greg_a_morton]

guys I have a manual glow plug setup that I bought off ebay and it has never seem to work. When I first tried to get my truck running I was having IP issues and had to get me a new pump. My thoughts are that maybe I burned them out during that period. I took one of the glow plugs out yesterday and it did not look bad to me. I got me a set of jumper cables and hooked the negative to the body and hooked the positive to the top and nothing. They are beru plugs I think and they where new when I first started trying to get the engine running. The first little while when I would hit the switch my dome lamp inside would dim and you could hear the solenoid click under the hood but now it still clicks but no dimming of the light. Any body that could help would be great cause it wont start without either and I am leery about the juice.

 

[86ford69]

Sounds like you need new plugs. If they didn't lite up on the cables the most lik he they are fried. Try using a ohm meter. Should see somewhere around 1 to 5 ohms. But it sure sounds like you need glow plugs. I am now in need of plugs. I left mine on for 10 mins yesterday and had to get a pull to get her to life. My truck does not like the juice at all it tries to hydrolock everytime.

 

[itsacrazyasian]

Take a test light and attach the alligator clip end to a positive terminal of the battery. Unhook all the glow plugs but leave them in the head. Touch the test light to each GP and if it lights its good, if it doesn't its burnt out.

Maybe its time to wire in a glow plug controller or dual coil glow plugs if you stick to manual gp's?

 

[jonathan]

Take a test light and attach the alligator clip end to a positive terminal of the battery. Unhook all the glow plugs but leave them in the head. Touch the test light to each GP and if it lights its good, if it doesn't its burnt out.

Maybe its time to wire in a glow plug controller or dual coil glow plugs if you stick to manual gp's?

i dont think that is 100% true. when i did that it said that all mine were good but when i hooked them up to a charger i had 3 bad

 

[Full Monte]

i dont think that is 100% true. when i did that it said that all mine were good but when i hooked them up to a charger i had 3 bad

The 12 volt drop light test works (use a 50 watt bulb), but it tells you only if the plugs are burned (open), not if the resistance has gotten out of spec because of close-to-failure use. The resistance of these plugs go up sometimes and they don't heat up enough to start the engine. Note that it only takes a few burned out plugs to keep an engine from starting.

 

[itsacrazyasian]

perhaps but its how i've always quickly checked mine. When applying power to them i've had several people tell me they tested them with a battery but forgot to ground them...

 

[greg_a_morton]

maybe I am doing this wrong or something! I hooked the test light up to the positive on the battery and then touched the tip of the glowplug and nothing. If I touch down low on the body of the plug the light will light up dim. Could it be a grounding issue?

 

[lotzagoodstuff]

If you have a volt meter, test them from the top to ground and see what the resistance is. If you get an open (no continuity) reading that glow plug is shot. I like the resistance test as I can see if they are all equal or if I need to keep an eye on any individual glow plug. I think the resistance should be around 2 ohms, but I can't remember for certain.

Good luck.

 

[TWeatherford]

The body of the glowplug and the tip where the connector attaches to are separated by whatever it is inside the glowplug that heats up. If they burn out either the resistance goes way up or they separate internally. I always just check mine with an ohm meter, so far all my plugs have been under 1 ohm. More than a few ohms and I'd be replacing it. Make sure to subtract out the resistance your meter shows with the positive and negative leads shorted together, usually the resistance built in the meter is .3 or more ohms.

I love my manual glowplug controller, but wouldn't consider running one unless it was a (ON)-OFF switch, that is, it requires me to hold the button or else it jumps to off on its own. Then it becomes much harder to leave them on too long.

 

[greg_a_morton]

my controller is a toggle switch that goes back to the middle when I let off. Guys I can honestly say that other than checking my battery to see how much juice it has in it I don't know how to use the meter for any thing.

 

[86ford69]

What kind of meter do you have? Ill shoot a pic of min and show you what setting.

 

[86ford69]

Meter

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Hope this helps

 

[86ford69]

For some reason I wasn't getting a reading. Looks like I need to do some work.