On Glow Plugs.

[Paul.jansen@xtra.co.nz]

HI Guys.

A bit unrelated to what my be the starting problem but for those of us that want a quick way to check our glow plugs are OK here it is and you dont even have to take the intercoler off.

Set your multimeter to it's lowest value Ohm setting I.e 200ohm on a digital meter. Place one probe of the meter on the glow plug bus bar and the other grounded to the engine block or tappet cover, etc. If your glow plugs are all good the value of all 4 in parallel should be 0.25 Ohm (assuming a 1 ohm value for the CY55/CY05 glow plug). I had a reading of 3.6 ohms and when I tested each one separately (by disconnecting the bus bar) I had three plugs which were 150 mega ohm (completly stuffed) and one which was around 3.8.

Symptoms were lots of cranking when cold, white smoke from the exhaust prior to the engine firing up then a heap of grey smoke on start up.

The Delica is a 1997 2.8 turbo and has done 130,000 Km and has been well maintained. The onset of the cold starting issue was quite sudden. Went from start up in a couple seconds at -5 C to 20-30 seconds cranking at +10C.

I'm off to tread the maze of which replacement glow plugs to put in. Seems like concensus is the NGK CY55's but will do due diligenceand report back after making the purchase.

Any advice on the best glow plug other than the Mitsi genuine part (expensive much appreciated) the Mitsi part number changed for the Delica post 1995 to ME 201632 . I read a post somewhere that suggesetd that the later engine ran hotter so hence the change??

[Feds]

I recently bought and installed these:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0902820530

Today was the first "cold" day (about 5°c) since I've put them in. Startup was amazing. Prior to installing, I would have needed two glow plug cycles, plus a long crank, plus 30 seconds of white cloud exhaust, plus throttle lock.

Today the van fired up like it was 25°C out, no grumbling, lumpy idle or anything. One little white smoke puff, and we were good to go. I can't speak about longevity, but the plugs definitely work.

My van's a '96, so should work for you.