I have been pleasantly surprised this year. For some reason I don't remember now I replaced all 5 glow plugs this summer when I was driving the miata during warm weather, and then found a used relay. Worked great... Now its 25 degrees here this morning, not plugged in and it starts great. No problems all week, starts on the first shot. Lets hope rusty isn't reading, but I bought Bosch glow plugs on fleabay for $28 bucks for the set of 5. Well worth it considering how its starting this winter so far.
Sounds like you one upped me since your cost is 000.. Peter On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 1:41 PM, Jim Cathey <j...@windwireless.net> wrote: > > I got home from work Thursday and it was about 25 degrees outside and > I knew Jill was going to rehearsal within minutes, and yet I found the > car not plugged in! I'd _told_ her, repeatedly, that it needed 30 minutes > to an hour of preheat in this kind of weather in order to start reliably, > and yet...somehow it would be my fault. Yeah. So I plugged it in. > > Sure enough, within 5 minutes she was ready to go but the car wasn't. > We fought it awhile and really gave the battery a workout, I even went > so far as to point a space heater down its throat but no good. It > half-caught at times and really filled the air with a stinking cloud > of vaporized diesel, but there was no running that night. I noticed > that the glow plug light was no longer coming on, which was not a good > sign. We finally gave up and she drove off, late, in a huff in the > Frankenheap (_not_ her favorite car, though it was all warmed up and > has the happy Christmas lights); I put the battery on charge. > > The next morning I went out in the 25 degree cold, rigged some lights, > and tested the glow plugs. Two of the five, #'s 3-4, were open > circuits. Yeah, no way that'd start in this weather! (We may finally > be seeing some fallout from the car's poor-man's violet-wire afterglow > system.) I went to the parts pile to see what, if anything, I had > on-hand in that line, and found five pencil-type that weren't > obviously labeled for the OM60x engines. Two Bosch 0 250 201 039, two > Autolite 1103, and one Beru 0 100 221 138. The Bosch, at least, > cross-reference to this car. I was able to replace #3 easily enough > with a used Bosch plug, but I ran out of time on #4, it's hard to get > a 12mm wrench on it securely enough to not round it off. I did get > the wire off of it, at least. > > ...After work I came home a bit early to get enough time to finish the > job before Jill had to go to orchestra. I was able to get an open-end > wrench on the bad plug and break it loose. It was a pain walking it > out half a flat at a time, but I eventually prevailed. The new (used > Bosch) plug went in easily and I got it all connected back up. (The > block heater'd been on all day, the engine was pleasantly warm to work > on though it was still about 25 degrees outside.) I tested the plugs > with the ohmmeter and all were good, then I used the Fluke current > clamp and a bit of 10-gauge wire to feed power to them serially > through the connector plug from the big fuse screw. All drew 20-25 A > at first, dropping down to about 14 A over a period of some seconds. > I then buttoned up the car and started it. No problems and less than > half a second of cranking was required. It didn't really want to shut > off, however, and I didn't see any problems in the vacuum connections > from working on it. It's just really cold, and whatever leak it has > is most unhappy in the cold. That will need addressing soon, > methinks. > > The car started for her just fine and off she drove... When she got > back (late) she reported that all was well. > > -- Jim > > > > ______________________________**_________ > http://www.okiebenz.com > For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com > To search list archives > http://www.okiebenz.com/**archive/<http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/> > > To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: > http://mail.okiebenz.com/**mailman/listinfo/mercedes_**okiebenz.com<http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com> > _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
