Car won't start...AGAIN! - Page 2

m-reg · #11 09-03-2009, 02:39 PM

did you check the kill switch? and supply, I had one where the kill switch wire rubbed on a bracket and would cut the fuel when the motor moved like when pulling away good luck. oh yeh if glow relay was stuck on youd have dead battery in no time they take a lot of juice!

MRDART · #12 09-05-2009, 10:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by m-reg

did you check the kill switch? and supply, I had one where the kill switch wire rubbed on a bracket and would cut the fuel when the motor moved like when pulling away good luck. oh yeh if glow relay was stuck on youd have dead battery in no time they take a lot of juice!

Totally agree!!
check for electrical power on the fuel shutoff solenoid, And the glowplug relay if it is sticking the glow plugs takes about 50-60 amps if I remember correctly, so it would have drained your battery.
If you can get hold of a clamp type ampmeter that is an easy way of checking if the glow plugs are working,just cllamp it around the glow plug wire and se if it takes around 50-60 amps when you hit the glow pos on the ignition key.

Glow plugs are self regulating in a way when they warm up the resistance increases. Audi/vw use this system to give additional heating to the cooling circuit in cold wheather. It has a unit with 3 glowplugs that the coolant flows through...

m-reg · #13 09-06-2009, 12:47 AM

I supose its all going over diesel basics really like does the kill switch click on an off with ignition switch or if you flash the wire on it with ign on. the other one is are you getting fuel up to injectors like pump sucking air in somewhere but you probly done all that already

EvoStevo · #14 09-06-2009, 01:33 PM

I actually haven't done anything with it yet. The multimeter that my boss brought to work this past week turned out to be dead, so I still haven't ruled out glow plugs. Thanks for all your suggestions, guys. I'll definitely investigate the fuel kill switch and the other possibilities soon.

EvoStevo · #15 04-05-2010, 03:00 PM

So I finally got a chance to take a look at the car (nearly seven months later). I had a death in the family among other things going on in life that really just sucked the motivation out of me. Anyway, here's a report on what I found. I poked around under the hood and saw that the wire going to the fuel cutoff solenoid was barely hanging on. The spade connector just slips on and off with no effort at all, so I thought maybe the sudden jerk of stalling the car knocked it off. I push it back on and try starting it. Sure enough the battery is dead, so I pull the one out of my BMW (same size and cranking amps) and put it in. Try starting it again and still nothing. Doesn't even sound like it's trying to start. I put a test light on the fuel cutoff solenoid and see that it's getting voltage. I then loosen the nut on top of the injector of cylinder one. Tried turning it over and saw fuel dripping/squirting from the line. I then attempted to test the glow plugs. I put a test light on the bus bar and turned the key to the 'on' position. The plugs got power and the relay clicked off after a few seconds. I used my multimeter to try and test the glow plugs individually. I think I did it right, but am not totally sure. Five of them seemed to be within range, but I didn't remove the bus bars (not sure if that matters). The one closest to the firewall I couldn't reach, but it looks new (shiny at least). I suppose that leaves timing again. I did call the shop that worked on the car back in September and he said it couldn't be the timing. He refused to take a look at the car again, claiming that there was no warranty on the work he performed due to the condition of the engine. He did say that when he did the timing it was set to "factory spec." Don't know if that helps any. I'll try doing the rudimentary timing check that v8volvo outlined awhile back. I'm enrolling in a diesel tech class in the fall and hoping that will give me a few more ideas. All other suggestions are welcome. Thanks for reading.

Jason · #16 04-07-2010, 03:53 AM

Crack all the injector lines and make sure they are all squirting fuel, stuff will dry out in 7 months. I would also squirt some oil down the manifold so some gets into the cylinders. The car my friend alex got sat for a quite a while, and didn't start untill we did that. It wasn't low on compression, but it had sat so long the cylinders were dry and the rings weren't making enough of a seal.

Jason

ngoma · #17 04-07-2010, 09:31 AM

Mine would not start at all with 3 bad glowplugs when cold. By your description you did not check the GPs correctly. You must remove the buss bars and check each one individually for continuity. Does your car have a block heater?

EvoStevo · #18 04-07-2010, 12:03 PM

Thanks for the responses, guys.

@ngoma: I had a feeling the bus bar needed to come off. So was I measuring resistance on all of them then? If that's the case, I was still only getting less than 1 ohm. Yes, the car does have a block heater. I had forgotten about that actually. Thanks for the reminder!

@Jason: I'll try cracking all the lines next time and getting some oil in the cylinders. I hadn't thought about that. Thanks!

ngoma · #19 04-08-2010, 10:53 AM

If the block heater works, the car should start (after several hours plugged in) IF all that was wrong were some bad GPs. My experience was: Three bad GPs, car would not start in the morning if it was not plugged in. Once started and run, it would start fine w/o block heater every time for the rest of the day.

v8volvo · #20 04-08-2010, 10:13 PM

Yep you need the bus bar taken off to make an accurate measurement. A good trick is to remove the bar from the front 5 plugs but leave it attached to #6, which is difficult to reach with the multimeter leads. You measure the resistance of the front 5 plugs directly, then use the bus bar to measure the resistance of #6. Just make sure the bus bar isn't grounding out to any other metal engine parts and is only touching the glow plug terminal, then measure the GP's resistance through it. I forget what exact resistance is called for on the plugs but basically you are just looking for either open or not. If there is fairly low resistance then the plug can be considered OK; if there is infinite resistance then it is bad.

FWIW if the new plugs that the guy put in were anything but the exact right Bosch ones I would suspect they could be bad even if they are fairly recent. Seems like crappy plugs from Autolite, NGK, Champion etc can either burn out very quickly, or can heat improperly (glow somewhere other than the tip, not get hot enough etc). If in doubt about a plug, replace it with the correct Bosch one to eliminate the question.

As others have said these engines will not start at all if they have more than 1 or 2 dead plugs -- especially if the engine is tired and/or has been sitting. Yours is probably both of those.