One morning last week the glow plug light didn"t come on and the 240 struggled to start. I plugged it in the rest of the week without much trouble. Today I tested the glow plugs and found that number 2 was infinite resistance. So I changed it and everything is back to normal.

Normally I change all 4 when the light goes out. I guess PEH has another convert...don't change all of the light bulbs in your house when one burns out!!

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1976 240D
1987 560SL
2007 E320 Bluetec
1998 C280 (now son’s car)
1982 240D Manual - Sold

Of course he is right. The yellow glow indicator failed to illuminate and the 126 would not fire at 12 deg. F. Found #1 with infinite resistance and #4 with resistance well above 1 ohm. Changed both of them and now it cranks for 1.5 seconds at 5 deg. F!

I will say this much, though.

When you have 8 glow plugs that are of a cheap-o brand that has a history of swelling up and breaking the tips off into the precombustion chambers (making you pull the heads to get the tips out or risk destroying that piston) when they go bad, and when half the plugs are bad, there is a good reason to replace them all.



Thus was the case with my truck a couple of weeks ago...NEVER buy Autolite or Champion glow plugs for ANY vehicle!!!!!

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2001 VW Jetta TDI, 5 speed, daily driver
1991 Ford F-350, work in progress
1984 Ford F-250 4x4, 6.9l turbo diesel, 5 speed manual
Previous oilburners: 1980 IH Scout, 1984 E-350, 1985 M-B 300D, 1979 M-B 300SD, 1983 M-B 300D
Spark-free since 1999

my temp gauge on the dash was acting up - so i did nothing and it self-healed in 2 days!

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1984 300D Turbo - 231k....totalled 11/30/07 RIP

It is worth it to change them all on a 602/603/606 engine when you have to pull the intake manifold to get at them.

I was just going to say that turbodiesel. If the intake manifold comes off they all get changed.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

Hatterasguy, I bet that was the same case when you had to change the rear three spark plugs in your Camry, that is, if you had the V6 model. We had a '92 Camry and it was a PIA to work on. I never did change the spark plugs in it for that very reason. I hated that car. I'm glad it's gone.

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DJ


84 300D Turbodiesel 190K with 4 speed manual sold in 03/2012

"Thus was the case with my truck a couple of weeks ago...NEVER buy Autolite or Champion glow plugs for ANY vehicle!!!!!"

Right on, Warden.

Add Lucas to your list!

Wes

I have had good results changing all the plugs and being done with it, but that's when they were $3 each. Since they are so expensive now, it's probably time to rethink this approach.

Be warned, however, that you can have a plug that tests very well with an ohmmeter and it still will not be effective. I'm not sure what happens, possibly the wire shorts against the shell somewhere in there and only transfers heat in a limited area.

Also, I have had them with holes burned all the way through the shell.

Since the things are so expensive now, maybe we need to figure out a way to test them for how much heat they can transfer.

Good luck,

Larry,
What do you think about testing them with a good battery charger or hooking them up to a battery? That's what I've done with good results.
~DJ

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DJ


84 300D Turbodiesel 190K with 4 speed manual sold in 03/2012

I figured that was a given!

Wait...Lucas makes parts for non-British cars?

Be afraid...be very afraid...

DJ, if you start to use a battery charger for this... ( and I don't know if that is a good idea ) ... keep in mind that some of them require a voltage sensed from the item ( battery ) before they will output electricity... ( ie, when I have a really drained farm battery I have to jump wires from a good battery before it will activate the charging circuit.... once it gets ' some' juice ... then the other battery can be taken out of the loop...
Did not want you to think a plug was bad because it did not heat up with just the charger ( if you have this type )....

No it's a 4 banger lietuviai the plugs take about 10 min to change. It's not that bad of a car, seems to be built well.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

Yeah, Warden -

I once owned a Ford diesel pickup and a replacement glow plug I bought from the dealer was made by (you guessed it), LUCAS.

By the way, you know why the British drink warm beer........

they all have Lucas refrigerators.

Cheers,
Wes

Leathermang, my battery chargers seem to be able to run current to anything, dead or alive. I've been using battery chargers to test glow plugs way back when I had a Datsun diesel pick up and it was the only way I knew that would show whether one was good or not. The Datsun used Nippondenso glow plugs and they never seemed to last very long. At least they were easy to remove. I would simply take the plug and hold it with the negative lead. Then I would take the positive lead with the charger on and touch it to the plug's connector for a few seconds and see if it would start glowing. If it did, then I knew it was still good. I couldn't imagine if doing this would be bad for the plugs since they get current in a similar way but I wanted to get some input anyway.

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DJ


84 300D Turbodiesel 190K with 4 speed manual sold in 03/2012