I Have A Landrover 90 (1988) With A 2.5l TD Engine In It, And I'm Having Rather Alot Of Trouble Starting It, Measured The Voltage Reaching The Glow Plugs And It's 10v (ish) Is This Right Or Is There A Problem Somewhere?

Cheers

i think thats about right, these engines are never the best for starting though, at least my old one wasnt.

i think its to do with it being indirect injection.

Very Speedy Reply...Cheers
Ah, Well At The Moment Mine Isnt Starting At All, Got The Battery On Charge, Soon She'll Be Able To Jump The QE2 (Just Got The Car And It's Been Stood For A While) And If That Doesnt Work, I've Got A Set Of New Glow Plugs On Standby.
Once Again Cheers For The Reply So Soon =]

Best way I've found to check yer plugs is to take them out and connect them to a twelve volt battery and see if they glow red hot after a few seconds.

Ah Good Idea, I'll Try And Pry The Buggers Out. Their A Tad Tight In At The Moment, Treated Them With WD40 Though So Should Have Em Loose In A Jiffy

Ey an anuffer thing if you have to resort to easy start try brake and clutch cleaner in an aerosol instead its miles beterer. An to get yer plugs out if they're tight try starting using brake an clutch cleaner or wot have you an waiting till yer engines hot an try again.

Wouldnt Have Thought About That One, Shall Give It A Go, Cheers

Where Would I Spray It Though (Instead Of Easy Start) Do I Pull The Turbo Inlet Pipe Off And Spray It In There?

air intake innit?

I think that the glowplugs are wired in series on the older engines. Therefore if one plug dies, they all stop working. Might save you a couple of pence working out which one is dead..

i fink yu can rewire em to be in parallel too. dunno how tho

If at all possible, do not use Aerostart or any other ether spray magic potion. These substances knock seven bells out of piston rings and valves.

It is VITAL he works out FOR SURE that his glow plugs are NOT wired in series, and as it is a Turbo 2.5 they should NOT be. There should be one hefty cable joining the tops of the 4 plugs, and one cable coming from the dash somewhere.

10 to 11 volts is about right.

Here's two good tricks to get one of these running:

1. TOW START IT ! Starter motor speed is very slow on a cold day, probably 60 rpm or less, and 100 rpm when warm. Not enough to fire up, a chilly diesel. Towing it at 15 mph and second gear will give about 1,500 rpm, and she'll fire up damn quickly for you.

2. This needs two people. Take off the glow plug feed cable, and get a second well-charged 12 volt battery (even quite a little one will do) and jump leads. Connect the black jump-lead from slave battery minus (- ) to the chassis, and connect the red jump lead to the slave battery positive ( + ). Keep the left-over red jumper lead in your hand, and well clear of the bodywork. Get number two person in the driver's seat, check it is in Neutral, with the clutch down to reduce gearbox drag. Now you hold your left-over red lead onto any glowplug tip and count up to 20 seconds at least, and still with the jumper still touching on the plug-top shout at number two to give her a whirl till she's running, at which stage you can disconnect your slave leads.

Diesel start technique should NEVER be short bursts on the starter - keep it turning for a good long time, and it should speed up as it starts to fire up a bit, and eventually it should catch.

As mentioned, these are difficult engines to start from cold - all indirect diesels are. So, they need a really good glow to fire them up, and this slave battery trick is one way to keep the plugs FULL HEAT on 12 volts even during starter motor operation when the voltage might drop as low as 5 to 8 volts.

CharlesY

Mine has the same voltage across the glow plugs. My starting technique is to hold the ignition at the glow plug stage and count to 50 or 60, and she fires up right away.
I haven't had the chance to rewire the glow plugs to a separate 12volt supply and switch yet but I suspect with a direct 12volts the glow plugs will be hot in 10 seconds or less.
At the moment I think there is a massive resistance in the ignition switch itself causing the 2 volt loss in the glow plug circuit, but again not had time to diagnose this.

Patman1200 said:

Mine has the same voltage across the glow plugs. My starting technique is to hold the ignition at the glow plug stage and count to 50 or 60, and she fires up right away.
I haven't had the chance to rewire the glow plugs to a separate 12volt supply and switch yet but I suspect with a direct 12volts the glow plugs will be hot in 10 seconds or less.
At the moment I think there is a massive resistance in the ignition switch itself causing the 2 volt loss in the glow plug circuit, but again not had time to diagnose this.

Click to expand...

If you measure the battery voltage with no load on, that is, nothing drawing current, that reading will be a volt or two higher that when the glow plugs are heating, and the moment you engage the starter the huge current that draws will drop the battery and system voltage to as low as low as 8 volts, or even less if the battery is tired. At this voltage the plugs won't heat up much.

The total current draw of the four glow plugs alone is quite hefty.
Fifty to seventy amps would not be far from the mark while the plugs are cold, reducing to pehaps 40 amps once the plugs are red hot. The trick with glow plugs is to keep the voltage up, thus driving the full current through them, thus keeping them red bloody hot when you engage the starter and begin fuel injection.

The slave battery trick is a good one.

Remember, when towing, keep the glow going, and as the starter won't be used, your plugs will get up a good heat.

CharlesY

What a bluddy good response and a fantastic tip! I raise my glass to you CharlseY. I don't have this problem but I will remember the solution(s).