WOW !!! What a difference !!!
 

Had trouble starting car. On Monday I put in 2 Autolite glow plugs, hoping it would help till it got warmer weather. Next day it wouldn't start, so we got a ride on a flatbed. Got 5 new GP's ( reamed ) adjusted valves, injection pipe, and a breather hose. Runs great, even shifts gears a lot better.
This morning I went out and started up. 18 degrees F. Started like it had been running just minutes before. ( I am using a hose heater )

The 2 GP's I put in were melted - Autolites. First time I used them, and the last. :)

I had heard that about Autolites too, I only use Beru or Bosch. Glad you got it fixed, I'm having a similar problem with my sons 85. I've only been able to get two new plugs in, too much stuff in the way of the others!

Yea... They make a huge difference.....Same here. I had 2 autolites in mine. The car would stumble when started. I replaced those 2 with Bosch. Now all 5 are Bosch and they all read the same on the ohm meter. The car starts fine now and settles into a nice smooth idle. No more stumble on start up.:D

Edit: #5 had me cussing for a second or 2.

Cold stuff
 

Did the same with mine last fall...amazing difference and worth the time and effort (aka contorsionism to reach GP's) to change out all the GP and adjust the valves. Forgot to plug it in last night and it fired right away at 10*F this morning MUCH better than last year.:)

Adjusting the valves makes a HUGE difference for cold weather. Don't discount it's effect.

Autolite = Junk
Bosch or Beru = Good

I just changed a couple last night also. I am lazy and remove the lines for the IP. Quick to do, and much easier access. Also one of those ratcheting box end wrenches is great!

NGK are terrible as well. Got 2 sets of them, the first time as I didn't know, the second time as I had a choice, They lasted more or less 6 month...
All berus now :)

i am from eastern pa. did you do the work? if not, who did? i can always use good help & advice with my 300D

Sorry to hear about Autolite woes. I personally have never had a problem with them but I have read that the Ford diesel crowd does not like them. I've had a set in my 86 Golf D for seven years and I'm sure they could be replaced but they still seem to work properly. Back when I bought them the price differential between Bosch was at least 33% so I opted for the Autolite.

The NGK I've also had, in a 1982 Datsun Maxima diesel and I found them to be a very good plug. The key I think with any glow plug is to always run the same manufacturers plugs and do not intermix brands. The specifications for each maker are slightly different and mixing can be a problem.

Fortunately I have a pretty healthy supply of Monark diesel GP's for the VW idi diesels and I have as well an extra set of Bosch for the TDI.

steve a

I think this is the key point, I don't know why but on the E300TD they don't last. On others car they have a good name, not on older MB.

Certainly you'll get no argument there. There are certain brands that will work better than others in certain vehicles. NGK probably made the OE plugs for the Datsun.

Is anyone using the Duraterm Chromium glow plugs?

regards
steve a

Great question, they have some good advert and I think I like to put a set of chromium in the car next time.

I changed my Glow Plugs (OM671.952) to Autloite and 6 months in the Engine (while the still worked) I had trouble removing 2 (the tips of the Glow Plugs had swollen and were almost too large to be pulled through the hole). This worried me.
It is one think to have a Glow Plug stop working but another to have them get stuck in the head.

The Autolites were an eBay purchase as were the Monark Glow Plugs I replaced them with. The Monarks are not supposed to be good either but since I already had them I used them. So far the Monarks have caused no problems.
However, while I Glow evertime I start I live in S California so the Glow Plugs do not get the same workout as they would in a colder State.

Since that time I have bought a bunch of Boschs for when replacement time comes.

I was just changing out the 3rd failed bosch of the winter on my car, looking at the pile of 9 bad bosch units I have amassed over the last year+ wondering what to do with them, and marveling at how good a job Bosch and napa were doing of getting my money....

Thats odd, mine last years, maybe you have some carbon built up in there:confused: Are you sure your relay is turning off?

Possible swollen tips is the problem with autolites.
LOTS of discussion on the oilburners.net site under the 6.9 and 7.3 IDI section.
MANY people have reported the swollen tips. Some people never experience it. When it happens, its a real pain.

Bad Autolites (etc.)
 

Recycle the suckers into compression guage fittings 'bout all I think they're good for even new :P

I think when a swollen tip is found the injector on that cylinder should be spray checked. My brother in law did some experiments with plugs outside the engine. Wetting them excessivly they would swell in his experiment. They were volkswagon bosh glow plugs. Not autolight or the nortoriously famous o champion glow plugs.

I also believe some of the glow plugs for 6.2 and 6.5 labelled acdelco are coming out of china and have been known to swell unusually. We will have to watch for the two good german labels switching production to china. Probably inevatable.

my relay seems to function properly. I reamed them last fall, and the 3 that have failed since have been clean and easily removed.

I am on the same thought train as Barry. I think it is time to do injector tips. but all my bosch are made in france. that is prolly the problem.:p

No I didn't. More money than I wanted to spend, but after driving it was well worth it.

RyanZ, you can always do those jobs yourself with not much of a possibility of issues. Between the archive information and the active site it would be hard to go wrong. All items were just standard maintenance really.

I purchased eight glow plugs for a 6.5 gm diesel last night. The final decision was to buy from the american firm that originally made the delco plugs for ten to twenty years. They are wellmans (go5o) with a full year warranty. I could have picked up a set of acdelco for thirty two dollars. Forty five anytime. The wellmans were sixty two dollars for eight.

They claim they have refined those plugs curently in many ways. The biggest thing to me is they do not swell like the current unimproved chinese delco plugs as far as I can tell.

Bosh makes plugs for this engine as well. I just never ran across anyone else using them in the 6.2 and 6.5 engines. It is hard to decide what to buy on occassion.

It has probably been awhile since I purchased an american built non relabeled product for cars. What is really strange is wellman make aftermarket glow plugs for mercedes and I have never heard a refference to them on this site before. Their private labels are unknown to me as well and they are made in Kansas. Been in the business for sixty years. Look their website up. Wellman glow plugs did it for me. Correction. They are just entering the market or about to with the old mercedes designed pencil type glow plugs. Now makes sense why I never heard of them before.

Does anyone have any experience with Beck/Arnley glow plugs? I bought a set for my 240D from ********, and they seem to work just fine. They are CHEAP and made in Germany!

Haha, you sure seem to cuss a lot when working on your car. :P

I don't have a garage. January isn't the best time of year to work outside. And, I have only one car.

That will tend to do it unless you can find a temporary heated space. To control costs is one reason to drive older cars. Too much paid for service defeats the Inherant savings. On a daily driver just break up the total work into smaller segments to keep it on the road,

Combined with these cars being fairly easy to work on for the average guy. They may be about the last generation of cars to qualify this way.. I have even put a couple aside for my grandchildren.

I do some work on our newer cars as well. Without working on the older ones over the years I might not have been able to. I also do not have a crystal ball for the future.

My thoughts are they will not be usable because of many factiors down the road. World cost of energy in north america is one possible and probable senario at some point alone. We pay about 4.50 per american gallon of diesel at the moment for example up here iin Canada.