Just a random thought: IP electrical connectors

[mexicanjoe]

The other day LuLu Belle left me stranded..Horrors!! After messing with it for a few minutes I decided not to mess with it any more. I would get my buddy Tom to to pull me home( Oh! the shame!!) I went back about 5 hours later and thought what the heck let me try this one more time.... No soap!
So i popped the hood and commenced looking around, prodding if you will. I noticed that the wires leading to my IP looked funny. So, i yanked them off and looked at the connections.. two of them looked corroded. Not an uncommon occurrence, since we have plenty of H2S in the air. I then cleaned off the corrosion, and cranked her up... Lo, and behold ------ she started and ran like a top. Im thinking LuLu Belle was not running properly before due to the corrosion. Am I right or wrong? who know? I just know one thing: I need a new glow plug relay cause it doesn't stay lit but 2-3 seconds if that . And she is hard to start...... guess Ill try to see how much they go for at my local store. Yall have a great weekend!!!

 

[DaveBen]

Check the glow plugs with a light. Place the "ground" connection, of the light, to the + of the battery. Now take the probe and touch each tip of the glow plugs. If it lights up it is good. If it does not light up, no good. The glow circuit cycling quickly is the clue.

 

[snicklas]

Hard to start and only stays on for a couple seconds is more than likely bad connections at the glow plugs, or some bad plugs. If the controller is not seeing the voltage drop it expects, it will short cycle the plugs......

 

[Macrobb]

One bad plug will short cycle quite a bit; two dead plugs will make the system worthless.

I personally test them with just a(10ga or so) wire to battery+ - touch the tip of each, and if you get a good spark, it's good. No spark, or one that's much weaker than the others and you should pull those.

Also, if all the wires are good, all the glow plugs are good, but it still short cycles... the controller may be getting old and need replaced.
One 'workaround' for this is to pull the glow plug controller resistor(that's the big metal zig-zag piece) off, and near the 'bottom' of the zig-zag area is a hole. Make a little notch next to that hole, just 1/32" deep or so. Reinstall it and the glow plugs should cycle longer.
(The controller senses how 'hot' the glow plugs are by how much current they draw. Less current = hotter. It does this by measuring voltage across the resistor. higher voltage = more current. By notching it, we increase the resistance of that, which increases the voltage for the same current, so it thinks they are colder).

 

[jaluhn83]

A bad connection on the fuel shutoff could certain cause a problem. The smaller of the 2 connections is cold advance and only energized when cold/woln't make much difference if it's corroded, but the larger will shut off fuel if the solenoid doesn't get a minimum voltage.