I haven't posted here in ages. Been lurking, but life has been crazy and I've been somewhat in denial about the bigger things that Hilda has needed.

Today, I have a dead car. I think I've been running on two or even one glow plug for longer than I care to imagine. I am going to replace all of them and the relay just for good measure anyhow; but, I wanted to run this by you and see if you all think I should be looking at other things as well.

Symptoms:

*The glow plug light has not gone on since we got the car. (2003) There are some other instrument cluster problems, like the clock not working, so I was chalking that up (in denial) to electric problems that I needed to tackle, but didn't have the time and it was continuing to function so they're on the back burner.

*About a year and a half ago, I noted that the glow plug relay seemed to keep cycling. This happened for about another two months (I'm not sure how long it had happened before that); but, I only had one episode of a battery not willing to start. Replaced the battery, meant to replace the relay, got ill, it dropped from my radar for a few weeks, then the problem never happened again. (I did nothing to the relay to make it stop cycling all the time. Nor did anyone else in the family that I know of.)

*About a year ago now, maybe ten months, I noticed that the car was a little rough on start up but smoothed out after a minute at idle. It never didn't want to start. Real trooper.

(Kept thinking I really had to get to the glow plugs. Life kept getting away. Yeah, yeah, thousand violins.)

*Did notice that I was getting a little "more" smoke in the last few weeks, but, again, that wasn't consistent and it seemed to stop when the banjo fitting and line was cleaned and the alda adjusted.

*Which brings me to -- Friday and Saturday afternoon and Saturday morning (today is Sunday), when the car was started by the DP white smoke came out of the tail pipe. Started up very rough, even though in the case of the pm startups, the engine wasn't stone cold.

*Then, this morning. Starter fine, oil pressure fine, in-line filter and canister filter fine, fuel in the line ... smoke came out of the tailpipe while I was cranking her. Would not kick over.

*Used a voltmeter on the relay. Seemed to be getting and sending power.

So, whaddya think?

Thanks in advance.

__________________
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. -- Edward Abbey

1984 300SD: Hilda the veggie vundercar

How about doing some glow plug tests?

You need a VOM that can accurately measure ohms down to 1 ohm.

Pull the plug out of the relay and check each socket on the plug. The second lead on the meter should be connected to the negative battery terminal.

The readings should be between .8 and 1.2 ohms.

Any readings that are greater than this (or infinite) means the glow plug must be changed. I'll bet you have three bad one's.

sohj,

White smoke from the tail pipe is atomized unburned fuel which is a good indication of the GP not working.

Do a resistance test on the GP. Any that read higher than 1.2 ohms should be replaced.

P E H

PEH, that's any GP above 1.2 ohms.

Brian,

I stand corrected: 1.2 ohms.

P E H

..........you look out for me..........I look out for you.

I edited it for you.....as well.

.........then these last three posts can be deleted.