3 Plugs

The message from "Simondeo" contains these words:

Really? Are we talking about the Perkins Prima here? I've never seen one with only three plugs. There have always been four, though #1 can be hard to see/get at without removing the injector pipes.

Because the previous owner broke one off in the hole?

"SimonJ" wrote in news:dtifhu$puc$ snipped-for-privacy@nwrdmz02.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com:

More than likely. According to my information, it should have four. Would be silly to heat only 3 out of 4 cylinders :-)

Bet thats it... If it is.......... It happened to me, On a prima. there was a tendency it seems for carbon to build up on the glowplugs and sometimes make them seem almost impossible to get out. Mine sheared off. The good news is that if its starting reasonably OK on 3 and running ok. It should be ok running on 3 plugs. . Of course once its warmed up it wont be noticable. Much depends though on whether there is lost compression on that 4th cylinder... RE cold start up. Like how far up the plug hole before it sheard off.. Mine had to have the head off and the plug burnt out.. enormous cost.. If it is the prima and it runs ok suggest you consider running it on

3 glowplugs. Of course you could let someone try to extract it but I would be surprised if it succeded. Worst case scenario would be to get it a little further up the plug hole and then no further. Compression is then further down on that cylinder and you may HAVE to take the head of and have it electro burnt out at an engineering workshop. Good luck anyway

The message from "SimonJ" contains these words:

And you can bet it's #1 which is a bugger to get to.

Just a further thought.... If its sheared off it must have happened some time ago? and its been running on the other 3 glowplugs reasonably successfully?. Or has someone tried to change them very recently though? I think thats the question..... When was the glowplug snapped off? (If it is that of course) If its some time ago, it may be that another plug ( or more) have now failed. If so I would be VERY careful about trying to get them out. Mik

I'll have another look in the morning,its not mine the father-in-law has it,but when i looked today and i might and probably am wrong but where #4 injector is the holes there for the glow plug it but it's got a machined plug in it and from #1 i counted to the right following the earth wires and there was only 3, God knows but i bet it aint gonna be long before its knacked and in the scrapper.

I wouldn't worry about it too much, it will start on 3 plugs, the only difference it will make is that it may run on 3 for a few seconds, before the other cylinder picks up enough heat from the rest of the engine to start firing, which may result in a few seconds of grey smoke on cold starts. The glowplugs don't do anything once the engine is running, so it will make no difference to the performance.

The message from "Simondeo" contains these words:

The wires are done daisy-changed from one to the next - so it'd be no shakes to neatly leave one out. You'd never know.

Don't suppose you've got a digital camera...

In message , SimonJ writes

Land Rover's 5-cylinder Td5 engine has only four glow plugs, and it starts readily enough. Admittedly, it is a fairly recent, high pressure injection engine, so not really comparable with the Perkins in your father-in-law's M-reg 620sdi.

They're all like that sir. That particular engine is an excellent starter, it only really needs it's glow plugs in extreamly cold conditions (forget what temperature exactly, but several degrees below) so 3 plugs were judged sufficient when it was designed. It's not a Perkins Prima either BTW. It's a Rover L series, which is sufficiently different IIRC. Pretty decent engine IMO...

"Mike Lindsay" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@eurocom.com:

Autodata must be wrong, then. The layout diagram for the 620 TD clearly shows 4 glow plugs on the front side of the engine.

In message , Mike Lindsay writes

The Prima and the L series were both based on the 1994cc O series engine though.

My uncle's tractor only has 1 glow plug.

The message from Douglas Payne contains these words:

But how many cylinders? Or is it one of those fuming things in the inlet tract?

I had a truly dreadful Transit conversion with one of them once. The stupid thing had the clutch inner attached as expected to the release lever, but the outer was attached to the chassis. Pulling away forwards was OK 'cos the engine rocked in such a way as to delay the release of the clutch. Reverse however was all but impossible. As you let the clutch up the engine rocked and applied positive feedback which slammed the engine over so hard that the oil drain from the badly positioned vacuum pump broke off against the engine bearer. The only way to reverse was to stop the engine, put it in reverse and start with the clutch up.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Paul Giverin saying something like:

The block of which descended from the 'B' series, did it not?