If you are the lucky owner of one of these fine vehicles but you are experiencing hard starting on these cold winter morning coupled with copious amounts of white smoke then the problem is most likely one of the following

1. Bad glow plug(s)
2. Bad glow plug relay's

Now here's the thing, in true Chrysler fashion (being as fastidious as they are around accurate documentation.....NOT ), the factory workshop manual that is readily available off the internet shows only one relay controlling all 4 plugs. This is grossly incorrect. In fact there are two relays, one for plugs 1 & 4 and one for plugs 2 & 3.

I have owned 3 of these cars and on all 3 I have noted that for some reason the relay that controls 1 & 4 for some bizarre reason gives up the ghost long before the other one. Problem is the workshop manual only shows the relay that does not seem to die. As such people suffering this problem change that one, the problem still exists and so they start delving elsewhere for a solution.

If you open your bonnet (hood if you are an American) and look on the extreme right hand side of the engine compartment you will see 4 black relays in line mounted on the inside of the wing. The front two are the ones in question and it is the rear of the two that is the prime culprit.

I hope this helps someone one day

 

Like your style...
If a relay will 'click' when powered, it's possible to remove the case (usually plastic) and expose the contacts, which if all burned will likely fail to warm the glowplugs. Glowplugs draw a BIG current and the slightest burning of the contacts wil render the resulting small current useless at heating a glowplug. Prob. Chrysler or Motori designed the system with two relays to reduce the current by half for each.
Clean the contacts with emery or wet and dry paper (or nick your girl-friends nail-board) until clean. DON'T use contact-cleaner on ones like these, they spark and any sort of oil will make things worse.
You never know, you might get away with it, say half an hours work and no parts cost.
One of my dodges....
If you suspect a dead glowplug, disconnect it and apply a test lamp with a big lamp in it (a car headlight) between battery +ve and tip of plug. The lamp should glow almost as bright as just touching the contact onto the angine metal. That's the BIG current I mentioned. If testing all four or six, disconnect every one and test each as above. If one lights the lamp very dim -- dodgy. Replace.
In the good old days of indirect injection diesels, ALL the glowplugs had to work, otherwise, no start.

Leedsman.

 

I felt compelled to register with this forum just because i *had* to thank you both for these posts! my partner's old 2000 G.V 2.5td workhorse has been struggling with cold starts for ages, and recently became almost impossible. battery was pretty sh*gged anyway, so that was first point of call.... seemed better for like a week, or maybe less, then back to really struggling. changed all glowplugs then it wouldn't start at all :-/

i have trawled the web for hours and hours looking (hoping) for a simple fix (suspecting fuses/loose connections/relays or the like), and was scared silly by some of the very numerous posts on various pages from people with voyagers that don't want to start. we had no idea where the relays were for the glow plugs, and specific and useful info is very difficult to stumble across. *THIS thread* was exactly what we needed. cleaned the corroded spade connections and started first poke! thank you thank you and a thousand times thank you! <3 :-D

 

Good information from Glowplug and result from Von...Take note all you guys with this earlier engine.