fun with glow plugs

The car will start with 1 duff plug with a minimum of reluctance, it'll run on 3cylinders for a few seconds on a cold start and chuck a bit of unburned fuel out the exhaust. This will be more noticeable in cold weather.

Dunno about the resistance of a good glow plug.

Does the car need a new battery too?

ok I will see how I get on with three plugs, I wish I had given the WD40 a while to soak in though ! I suspect that I am going to need a new battery, since I don't use the car every day , it seems that once the volts drop below about 11.8v it just wont start, even though the engine spins over. Perhaps the new glow plugs will help though ?

The funny thing is that it started ok first thing this morning however after I had been to the post office ( engine still cold ) it would not start again with out a jump start. ( Which meant I missed my run in the Sun !!!)

I've never found WD40 helps!

If you have something that has started to undo, but is very tight, a

They may possibly make things worse from the point of view that with a worn out battery, but no glow plugs, the engine would crank faster than with a worn out battery and the additional draw of the plugs!

That's not "funny"; it would be expected behaviour unless your post office was perhaps 10 miles away.

Not sure what you mean; if it meant you were unable to purchase a copy of the Sun newspaper, that's a bonus at least :-)

Chris

My sister's one was still starting with a few tries with only one glowplug working, so you should be ok. The battery should have a nice solid 12.7 or so first thing in the morning, so perhaps that is more the main problem. I would rather have a good battery and dead glowplugs rather than a duff battery and 4 good glow plugs.

You can always get them out, in the worst case you just drill & helicoil them, but it's probably not worth it.

Well less than 10 Ohms, those or your meter are dead.

You assume he drove to the Post Office.

that's what I meant. I drove to the post office which only takes a minute or so, and then the car would not start again, although it turned over.. However my other car started 3 times in a row whilst I was faffing around jump starting the Peugeot .

I had not used the 306 for a week or so, but the battery should have been fully charged when I finished the last journey, since it was a 70 mile commute.

Time for a new battery ?

Time to check the alternator is charging properly, and that there is no unintended current drain first, I think.

Chris

:-)

Chris

Our 306D will start eventually on 2 or 1 plug. It takes a lot of cranking though.

I'm a bit surprised that the engine cranks if the battery's dicky though. I'm not an electrician but could it be that there is not enough power to throw the stop solenoid open, or work the glow plug relay?

If your plugs read 200k they are all US mine read between 1 and 2 ohms each (when cold).The resistance rises when they warm up I believe, but not that much. They are protected by a 40 amp fuse.

Yes, I was thinking along those lines too, hence why my under the bonnet diagnoses at the road side, included a couple of well aimed thumps on what looked to be the fuel solenoid, using the wheel brace that I had to hand ! Maybe it's a combination of things, eg. low battery and sticky solenoid.

Cheers ;-)

Yeah I had just this problem recently. I bought a six sided (not the 12 sided ones...) deep 12mm socket from my local motor factors. Applied lots of WD40 to the base of the plug, tapped the socket on, twisted firmly but cautiously and the plug came out no bother.

This was the third from the left side of the engine as you look at it. If yours is the fourth then you're in more trouble as the fuel filter housing and a couple of other odds and sods in the way.

If the car starts then just leave it IMHO, mine started on three plugs for ages; in fact it still did, I only changed the rounded off one to eliminate the plugs as the cause of the smokey cold-starts I've been getting (looks like I agree with Conor - weeping injectors. Should get them tested I suppose...)

I have the Halfords professional sockets, which I think are like the ones you mention. I thought I had rounded off the socket at first !

Ouch, pretty nackered then. With mine the previous owner had rounded it but I thought I'd have a crack with my regular sockets (Draper) anyway. I guess the glow plug metal is too soft, it just rounded off straight away :(