Delica Canada | Mitsubishi Van Club

Hi,

I recently bought my first Delica and have been having a weird starting problem... Advice would be greatly appreciated as I'm not sure what to do next!

This is the van's history: She's a 1991 l300 which overheated and the head warped so the engine was changed but then the injector pump seal gave up busted the timing belt and then the camshaft and all the good stuff. This is when I got her with both engines and a bunch of parts so I changed the head the timing belts, water pump all the seals injection pump etc... and she started great and runs really good no smoke at all.

Now the problem: Lately she would start real good in the morning but if I'd stop right away she would give me a hard time and crank really long so I adjusted my valve and it fixed it for 2 days... Then she started doing it again so I changed the air filter and fuel filters and readjusted the valves again (somehow they seemed way to tight again) and it fixed it again for 2 days. Then again same thing and I noticed as she cranked it seems the glow plug relays keeps clicking ( I cycle the glow plug... click long pause 2nd click, cycle again click real short pause 2nd click and the a bunch of clicks as cranks and does not start) so I took both temp. sensors out of my old engine and switched them then i checked the valve clearance again it was good so didn't touch it and it fixed it again for 2 days. Now this morning she starts first crank go to grab a coffee and now she's at it again.

When she does finally start it's usually as if nothing happened she'll sputter for a few seconds and the goes back to her old self!?!
Any advice would be appreciated I don't know many shops around here to take a look at it so I'm hoping I can figure it out!

One last clue when she cranks she doesn't smoke at all but when I undo the injector diesel gets in the cylinder and I tried the old farmer trick of throwing brake clean in the intake and it did nothing which makes me think sensor??


Thanks in advance for any help... Frank

Not restarting when still cold does suggest glow plugs to me. Maybe the quickest and easiest check would be to bypass the glow plug circuit (there's a mod to do this) to ensure you are getting power to those plugs. Or even just monitor that they are getting power when you go to restart it. It's possible that as things warm up an intermittent is causing the glow plug circuit to fail. Of course once the engine is hot, it'll start regardless, which is why the not starting after a short run and engine still cold suggests glow plugs or associated circuitry.