I've bought a set of glow plugs (A while ago) and was thinking about fitting them tomorrow. Are the situated at the front of the engine of a 2007 year car? Or the rear of the head?

 

Glow plugs are usually for Diesel engines. They warm up and help the combustion process if I'm not mistaken.

 

They are for oil burners and glow red hot for aiding cold starts as the diesel is sprayed over them and into the cylinders on these compression ignition engines. Had a good look and they are at the front of the head. Tomorrow's job...

 

2 are easy to get too, one a bit more difficult and one a right bugger.

With glowplugs there is always the risk if tips snapping off in the block. I would be inclined to test them individually with a multi-meter and then only replace if they have failed. Compare the reading against your new ones.

Regards
Richard

 

Hi Richard

I've just bought a new multi-meter! But I have never used one! So have no idea what to do with it. Could you give me a walk through on what to do please?

 

Test lamp, meter & bench

- snapping off - run the engine till the block is warm before you start the job and give them a squirt of easing oil
- make sure you clean dust from around the plug hole before removing the plug, you don't want debris going in there

Test lamp

- remove the individual cables from the plugs, lamp + to battery +, the pin of the test lamp to the top of the plug
- 2 ohms or less the test light should be bright, more than 2 ohms resistance the bulb won't light

Meter

- set it to ohms, lowest setting about 200 ohms, meter between top of meter and earth
- you are again looking for less than 2 ohms, less than 2 ohms is good more than 2 ohms is boogared
- you would expect about 1.5 [note the point] if you see a 1 without a point after it - its bigger than the 200 ohms measurement and boogared

Bench

- take the glow plug out
- heavy duty jumper leads battery + to top of glowplug, body of glowplug on a good earth
- a good uniform glow starting with the tip and spreading along the plug is what you are looking for on each / all plugs
- if ever I take plugs or glowplugs out I always copperslip the thread, and reinsert by hand not socket, then tourque to about 15nM
- you should always expect new glowplugs to heat almost the full length, and a plug with 50k miles to heat the tip only

 

Cheers my mate

Now thats what I call a replay. Gonna take a look at them over the next week now...

 

Best of luck M8, they're not difficult, watch out for what tfb says about knecking them off - that's a disaster. Try the test light or the ohms test, they are both non-destructive.

 

Many tnaks...