Heater plugs

The heater plugs on my 10 year old Peugeot 106 are, I think, failing. The car is harder to start in the cold weather and runs a bit rough for a few seconds.

But the question is - can I just put up with it, without it causing any addition damage to the engine?

Cheers

Reply to
Hiram
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it will only get worse till eventually it won't go at all, in the mean time it will put more strain on the battery, starter and alternator. New glow plugs are a standard service item on many diesels. Save yourself grief and all the noise in the morning by getting a new set fitted now, or if you are really short of cash then just replace the one or two that have actually failed.

Mrcheerful

Reply to
Mrcheerful

Ok I'll replace the faulty ones.

How do I find out which of the heater plugs are the ones to replace?

Reply to
Hiram

Best way is to remove them all and using a pair of heavy wires off the battery (be careful) power each one in turn, the end should glow bright red in a couple of seconds, those ones are good, replace the ones that don't glow.

If you are a little lazier then just disconnect the existing wiring to each glow plug and put a battery power wire to the terminal of the glow plug while it is still in the engine (very useful if some are hard to get at) you should get a nice healthy crackle of power going into good glow plugs and nothing or the faintest glimmer on bad ones.

Reply to
Mrcheerful

"Hiram" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

If you only do one or two, you'll find you need to do the others before too much longer - do 'em all. You wouldn't just replace a couple of spark plugs, would you?

Reply to
Adrian

No true - but I'll probably be scraping the car in 9 months and get another, with car prices so low, fixing 10 year old cars isn't such a good idea these days.

And here a admission - when I tried to take one of the GP out late yesterday - part of the cylinder head where the glow plug fits broke off due to corrosions. I think the tread had been crossed whoever fitted it last.

The car still works, just tried it this morning, but how long that glow plug will stay put on only half the thread!

Reply to
Hiram

A Similar thing happened to me a few years ago, it stayed put way too long and only came out after being drilled out at an engineering company when i had the head off for other reasons.

Tom

Reply to
Tom Burton

I tested some gp's yesterday using an old standard but fully charged battery. All ok but surprised how much current each one draws and the cheapo jump leads I used got rather hot. So x 4 plus the effort needed to crank the engine takes a lot out of the battery so I wouldn't leave it too late when the real cold weather kicks in. Probably get a good idea which have failed using a DMM as I think the resistance of a good one should be around the 1 mark.

Reply to
Redwood

I used the car for work today, and apart from a slightly sluggish start, it ran ok.

The GP is still in there ok, as soon as I saw part of the casing crack I screwed it back in. I'd say it only has 50% of thread to bite on now. The other 3 all came out ok - it is a bit of a shame that one didn't, because that has more or less condemned the car to an early bath.

Unless I have a brainwave.

Reply to
Hiram

I wouldn't worry, if it is done up then it will be fine .

Reply to
Mrcheerful

Don't fret mine did about 25-30k with only three plugs in, it was only when i decided to stop the morning smoke screen and change the stem seals and address a coolant leak that i decided to take the head off.

Once the head was off and was going for presure testing and skimming it was a no brainer to ask the engineers to get it out, apparently it was a bit of a bark and made from hard stuff!

If i wasnt taking the head of for other reasons then the snapped plug would still be there!

Tom

Reply to
Tom Burton

Cheers Tom,

I was a bit pissed off at the time I broke it, but now I can see things should be ok.

Reply to
Hiram

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