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Made a classic cock-up and bought cheap glow plugs from eBay. Hadn't read this forum where, if I had, I would have listened to continued advise to either get Toyota or Bosch plugs.
I only fitted them two months and after the first week cold starting was again a problem. Classic smoke and spluttering.
Did a resistance test last week and found all but one plug to be shot. Arh well, live and learn.. I'll whip 'em out and get some real ones. However, getting them out was a problem. Number one had a large deformed (almost melted) bulbous end and I had to gently unscrew the end out of the plug hole's threads. The bulbous end wasn't soot, it was deformed casing. Numbers 2 and 3 were fine but number 4 just wouldn't come out - even by unscrewing. I applied some gentle help with pliers and out it came - minus it's tip. SH1T.
I read loads on this on the forum and decided I'm not going to chance the bits getting stuck on the piston head, or stuck in the exhaust value seats, so off with the head.
The left-in glow plug tip was stuck in the pre-combustion chamber which, in my in-experienced opinion, could casue another risk, the rattling bits left in the pre-combustion chamber may damage the injector's tip. Since I had recently bought new injectors I wasn't going to risk this either.
Removing the broken off tip turned out to be a real b**tard. Whipping the head off is easy peasy compared to the equivalent of removing a grand piano from inside a mini. The three access holes into the pre-combustion chamber are TINY. The aussie manual says knock out the pre-combustion chamber cap using a suitable drift through the glow plug hole. I turned down some silver steel to 5.5mm O.D. and welted the drift with a sledge hammer. No movement of cap at all, just several badly bent drifts.
Fortunately, this action bent the glow plug tip into an L shape and then, with gentle rocking - remember how heavy a head is ! - one end of the glow plug tip made itself accessible through the exit hole from pre-combustion chamber to cylinder bore.
A pair of tweezers, then snipe-nose pliers, then mole wrench it was forced out. Took three long, cussing hours.
Anyhow, taking the head off taught me a lot about surfs. I took the opportunity to remove all the EGR crap, it ws previously just blanked off, and check other bits. Here I found my starting problem. The manifold heater was shot. Someone before had by-passed the shot resistor by connecting the two electical wires together and, consequently, I was getting full volts onto the glow plugs for the first 4-5 seconds AND the remaining time when the volts should have dropped to around 6v. No wonder my plugs had boiled and perhaps Toyota and/or Bosch plugs would have boiled too ?
Above - boiled manifold heater.
I'm waiting for a replacement so I can't report on how it starts yet. The next post is Tuesday, weather permitting.
I only fitted them two months and after the first week cold starting was again a problem. Classic smoke and spluttering.
Did a resistance test last week and found all but one plug to be shot. Arh well, live and learn.. I'll whip 'em out and get some real ones. However, getting them out was a problem. Number one had a large deformed (almost melted) bulbous end and I had to gently unscrew the end out of the plug hole's threads. The bulbous end wasn't soot, it was deformed casing. Numbers 2 and 3 were fine but number 4 just wouldn't come out - even by unscrewing. I applied some gentle help with pliers and out it came - minus it's tip. SH1T.
I read loads on this on the forum and decided I'm not going to chance the bits getting stuck on the piston head, or stuck in the exhaust value seats, so off with the head.
The left-in glow plug tip was stuck in the pre-combustion chamber which, in my in-experienced opinion, could casue another risk, the rattling bits left in the pre-combustion chamber may damage the injector's tip. Since I had recently bought new injectors I wasn't going to risk this either.
Removing the broken off tip turned out to be a real b**tard. Whipping the head off is easy peasy compared to the equivalent of removing a grand piano from inside a mini. The three access holes into the pre-combustion chamber are TINY. The aussie manual says knock out the pre-combustion chamber cap using a suitable drift through the glow plug hole. I turned down some silver steel to 5.5mm O.D. and welted the drift with a sledge hammer. No movement of cap at all, just several badly bent drifts.
Fortunately, this action bent the glow plug tip into an L shape and then, with gentle rocking - remember how heavy a head is ! - one end of the glow plug tip made itself accessible through the exit hole from pre-combustion chamber to cylinder bore.
A pair of tweezers, then snipe-nose pliers, then mole wrench it was forced out. Took three long, cussing hours.
Anyhow, taking the head off taught me a lot about surfs. I took the opportunity to remove all the EGR crap, it ws previously just blanked off, and check other bits. Here I found my starting problem. The manifold heater was shot. Someone before had by-passed the shot resistor by connecting the two electical wires together and, consequently, I was getting full volts onto the glow plugs for the first 4-5 seconds AND the remaining time when the volts should have dropped to around 6v. No wonder my plugs had boiled and perhaps Toyota and/or Bosch plugs would have boiled too ?
Above - boiled manifold heater.
I'm waiting for a replacement so I can't report on how it starts yet. The next post is Tuesday, weather permitting.
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