Delica Canada | Mitsubishi Van Club

If someone could please help me out, I need a quick, easy measurement. Put your meter on dc volts, put the positive lead on the battery positive and put the negative lead on the glowplug bus bar and turn the key to the "ON" position and tell me what the reading is. I am guessing it should be around .1 or .2 volts.
NOw start and let the truck run and measure the same places while it is running. This needs to be done from stone cold so that the glow controller is still heating the plugs but through the resister.
I have a voltage drop of 2.7 volts with the key in the "on" position ( I think this is wrong) and my resister circuit is completely off when running but I think that may be due to the engine being a bit warm still.
Really appreciate the info, thanks.

EricN wrote: put the negative lead on the glowplug bus bar and turn the key to the "ON" position and tell me what the reading is. I am guessing it should be around .1 or .2 volts.

I'd do it right now if I knew where the glowplug bus bar was. I'll take a look, but unless it actually says glowplugs on it I doubt I'll be able to figure it out.
P.S. Hope the surgery went well.

Here's what you're looking for. The glowplugs are the components with the green insulators, right next to the injectors.The bus bar is the curved electrical connection between them. These things draw a lot of current when they're operating. Since repairing the glowplug controller last weekend I see that the lights don't dim as much as they used to. Maybe the controller was slightly haywire all along, running the glowplugs at full power, whether they needed it or not.

To help find your way in, here's a wider shot of the engine bay....laura

Laura beat me to it, just erased a whole paragraph of typing.
That is one nice clean looking engine too.

I need to know what the voltmeter says before 5 seconds is up and you get the second relay click (when we normally would start it). This also assumes that your truck starts no problem in the morning. Mine takes quite a bit to start, a good 3-4 seconds of cranking and it coughs a bit and dies then it starts on the second try. I am almost thinking it could be the lift pump that is in the injection pump bleeding off but such a big voltage drop from the battery to the bus bar just seems pretty extreme. The control circuit all works fine, it is just that voltage drop that is suspect although I didn't have the strength to test the individual glow plugs.

Surgery went ok I think, still hurts like a bugger. I can barely walk and I am useless but I just found out yesterday if I actually take the painkillers (demerol) I feel pretty good so I went out and played with the truck a bit last night after doping up all day. I didnt get your bracket made yet but by the time you make it out this way, I will either have it done or you can help me do it.

How is your truck working now, fuel gauge all hooked up and working right yet?

Unfortunately my wife beat me to the van. She's out driving youngest to preschool right now, which is only 3 km away. How cold do you need it to be for the measurement?

I'm heading over there in a week and a half, but don't worry about trying to get anything finished. I'm in no big rush to get it set up, and you definitely don't want to push yourself much after back surgery.

The truck is running well, other than the fact that I keep running out of filtered WVO. Hopefully that problem will be solved in the next few weeks. I ordered a heavy duty WVO transfer pump from redlinepumps.com. The the plan is to spend a few days filtering the 3000 litres of WVO that my Co-op partners have already collected. Still hunting for a suitable storage container and a shed to shelter it all, but it is coming together.

I was still having trouble with getting the sending unit to register properly, but I haven't had time to trouble shoot it much. The last session ended with me accidentally disconnecting main tank sending unit. Now I have to pull the eateries again to reconnect

The initial measurement when the key is just turned on doesnt matter, it can be warm, as long as you still get that second click. I think the control unit actually shortens that time between the first and second clicks depending on the heat of the glow plugs. The second measurement with it running would need to be pretty cold (less than 20 celcius) but that isn't as important for now.
If you are out this way, my shop has some 55 gal drums (208 litres) your more than welcome to. They would love to be rid of them. And I am sure with the help of you and some demerol we could easily finish off the brackets.

OK, I got 12.0V with the engine off, no key, 11.8 with the key turned on, and 13.12 and climbing with the engine running. Does this make sense? The engine is still pretty warm from the morning trip.

I am interested in the 55 Gal drum, I'm sure I could use them at some point in the filtering process. I'll have to through the roof rack on top to bring them back, I'll be bringing my wife 3 kids and our dog so we won't have much interior space. I guess if I stick the rack inside for the trip there I only get dinged once for ferry over height charges.

The control unit definitely changes the click time according to temperature. The difference between when I took delivery of Gumdrop (September, when it was warm) and cool mornings now is obvious. There also seems to be a minimum glow time, regardless of temperature. You see this on a hot start, if you wait for the second click.

I don't know what else the glowplug controller does, but I assume the microprocessor isn't just for decoration.

...laura

Adam wrote:OK, I got 12.0V with the engine off, no key, 11.8 with the key turned on, and 13.12 and climbing with the engine running. Does this make sense? The engine is still pretty warm from the morning trip.

Hmm, not quite. It sounds more like you have your multimeter connected to the battery only. The positive lead on the multimeter should go to the battery + terminal, the negative lead to the glow plug bus bar. I am expecting something like this: 12v with key off, .5v or less when the key is first turned on (mine shows 2.7v) and then, if it is cold enough, it should show maybe around 6v while it is warming up but if it is already warm, I am guessing something closer to 12v.

marsgal42 wrote: I don't know what else the glowplug controller does, but I assume the microprocessor isn't just for decoration.

...laura

I think it also senses the heat of the glow plugs by their resistance and adjusts the on time in relation to that. I notice if I turn the key on till the final click, then turn it off and on really quick, the second click comes almost instantly, it fooled me into thinking the second click wasnt happening and I had a faulty controller but it appears that isnt the case.

it should be noted that most Delicas have a 6 volt glowplug system, this will really screw up the measurements you're expecting in relation to a 12 volt battery.

Mitsubishi refers to this as a rapid glow system, the system runs the 6volt glowplugs "over voltage" for the first bit to warm up the engine extra quick, then drops them back to close to 6 volts to help smooth out the engine once it starts.

Did the test on a stone cold engine...

Engine off - 12.5v
Engine on run (glow) - 1.6v
Engine started - 6.5v
After a bit 14.2v

EricN wrote: Hmm, not quite. It sounds more like you have your multimeter connected to the battery only. The positive lead on the multimeter should go to the battery + terminal, the negative lead to the glow plug bus bar. I am expecting something like this: 12v with key off, .5v or less when the key is first turned on (mine shows 2.7v) and then, if it is cold enough, it should show maybe around 6v while it is warming up but if it is already warm, I am guessing something closer to 12v.

OK, I tested again. The voltage dips to 2.5 or so in between the glow plug clicks. The engine is pretty warm right now so the clicks are pretty close together, I'll check it tomorrow morning stone cold and let you know what voltage the glow plugs are using to warm up.

I read something about the resistance of the glow plugs increasing when they're warm, so that may actually affect the reading quite a bit.

Thanks for the replies guys. What this is telling me is that it seems normal to lose 1.5-2.5v due to resistance in the circuit connections between the battery and the busbar. I find this amazing, that is quite a bit of loss. I was expecting at most .5v to be lost. And just to confirm, both of you have no starting issues, ie it fires up instantly correct? I guess I need to check the glow plugs now if that is the case.