Since I got this car the light on the dash seems to work as I would expect, it comes on for several seconds first thing in the morning and then for a shorter time in subsequent starts. I found yesterday that the power wire coming of the battery was broken, so I repaired it, but thought it was odd that the light seems to come on independant of the glow plugs actually getting power. After making this fix the light has behaved the same. After an hour drive this morning I stopped with the engine running to check things out and noticed that the wire I had repaired was too hot to hold on to, sure enough when I unplugged the glow plug control relay it clicked and the engine picked up speed and the sound of the alternator changed, so even though the light had gone off my glow plugs were on during the whole drive,(The plug was too hot to hold on to and the relay was too hot to hold also) i plugged it back in and the engine loaded down, I left it in for a minute or so to see if it would disconnect but it did not. Is this a common mode of failure for the control relay? or might it be an input to the relay that is causing it to stay engaged?
Thank you,