Delica Canada | Mitsubishi Van Club

Wondering if anyone has any hints & tips for removing and installing glow plugs. I've got the new ones, part # MD092392, I've put some WD40 on the old ones, and plan to do the swap on Sunday. I've got a deep socket wrench that fits. Don't have a torque wrench, although I have the specs of 11-15 ft. lb. (1.5-2.0 kg/m or 15-20 newton meter) and some idea of how much that is.

Any advice?

Warm up the engine a bit first? Warm up to full operating temp? Do it cold?

When installing the new glowplugs, lubricate the threads? With what?

Thanks in advance.

Did mine awhile ago, just make sure you have a proper fitting socket and give yer motor a blast of compressed air or something before you start to make sure there are no dusty bits waiting to leap into your cylinders. I also used some conductive paste(sparingly) when reinstalling the electrical harness thingy. One of my old ones was sporting a bit of a crack but the others seemed ok so I kept em for spares.

cheers

I'd keep spraying them few hours before tackling your job and they have a tendency to break. As for 11-15lbs/torque it's not very much. If you were to hold your wrench closest to the socket end and torque it until it's nice and snug I'd say that's about it. I wouldn't hold it at the farthest end, you'll have too much leverage and increase torque. Or you could just buy a torque wrench, they do come handy and aren't that expensive if you don't need a pro one...

Good luck!

Artacoma wrote:give yer motor a blast of compressed air or something before you start to make sure there are no dusty bits waiting to leap into your cylinders.

Arrgghh. Why didn't I think of that before I glued it all together with WD40 yesterday?

I compressed-aired it today, then sprayed a bunch of Liquid Wrench on it. I'll do that again tomorrow when I get up, a couple of hours before starting work.

I know I could buy a torque wrench, never really needed one before. But that would take the challenge and risk out of it!

Thanks for the advice. Will let you know how it turns out.

Waaahhoooo! It starts easily again

It took a little more torque than I really wanted to put on it to undo them, but they all came out. I'd estimate that it took 25-30 ft/lb of torque to undo them. I did it with a cold engine (engine block temp probably about +15).

The new ones went in just fine, hooked up the bus bar and wires. Then the moment of truth ... key to ign, wait for the 7 seconds or so until relay clicked off, turned the key and it started right up. Quite the difference from the 20 seconds of cranking yesterday.

While I was doing it, Green1 had a voltmeter on it. During the pre-start, it was 12 volts, dropped to zero, when it started it went to 6 volts for about 15 seconds then off. With the 3 old glow plugs, after start the relay would click on and off madly for about 30 seconds, with cycles of about 1/2 second on, 1.5 seconds off.

So I'm happy! I'll keep the 3 old ones as spares. Green1 says they are in pretty good shape. We broke the top threaded part off the other week, that's why I got new ones.

Thanks everyone for your advice.

During the pre-start, it was 12 volts, dropped to zero, when it started it went to 6 volts for about 15 seconds then off

actually it was 8 volts in pre-start and 5 post start. (remember, they are 6 volt plugs)