10 year plus cold start

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Toonarf

Active Member
Posts
79
Location
Hesketh Bank West Lancashire
Hi Every one
I got a new battery for Boanerges today and after cleaning the terminals and gingerly applying voltage to the electrics for the first time in at least 10 years I turned the key to see what happened......... not a lot, I got an oil light and a charging light. Now I expected a yellow "cold start" light whilst twisting the key further and finally a crank. But I got neither doh!!!! so before breaking the meter out I did a visual inspection and found the starter solenoid wire off at the starter. I re fitted that wire and turned the key to confirm starter action which I did indeed have. More amazingly I got a bit of white smoke out of the exhaust and a quickening of the starter as he started to fire. So I quickly added the smoke hose ( I have form for setting the fire alarm off with engine smoke) Turned the key again and after about 4 revolutions I was rewarded with him running, not smoothly to start with but soon much better ..........
All this begs the question how the hell did it start so good after at least 10 years with apparently no heat?, its been Baltic in the workshop today and I expected to struggle to start even using a good 30 seconds of heat.

David
 
Hi Every one
I got a new battery for Boanerges today and after cleaning the terminals and gingerly applying voltage to the electrics for the first time in at least 10 years I turned the key to see what happened......... not a lot, I got an oil light and a charging light. Now I expected a yellow "cold start" light whilst twisting the key further and finally a crank. But I got neither doh!!!! so before breaking the meter out I did a visual inspection and found the starter solenoid wire off at the starter. I re fitted that wire and turned the key to confirm starter action which I did indeed have. More amazingly I got a bit of white smoke out of the exhaust and a quickening of the starter as he started to fire. So I quickly added the smoke hose ( I have form for setting the fire alarm off with engine smoke) Turned the key again and after about 4 revolutions I was rewarded with him running, not smoothly to start with but soon much better ..........
All this begs the question how the hell did it start so good after at least 10 years with apparently no heat?, its been Baltic in the workshop today and I expected to struggle to start even using a good 30 seconds of heat.

David

Its a series, thats what they do.

Col
 
That looks to have the original pigtail glow plugs fitted. These are wired in series, and if one plug fails, the entire circuit is broken. They run on 6V which the ballast resistor on the bulkhead reduces from 12V

The modern type are wired in parallel and are much less fragile. It is a worthwhile upgrade that is very cheap.

The parallel type run on 12V so do not need the ballast resistor. It is easiest to leave it in place and use it to connect the 12V plugs to the 12V side.

If you upgrade to 12V plugs, you will need to swap the 6V glow plug bulb in the instrument panel for a 12V one. The original 6V one will glow very brightly but won't last long.
 
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