Hello everyone.
After a long and slow restoration project I have been doing some work on the (2.1/4 diesel) engine , Head job really..
It never was an easy starter but now it is very difficult to start and when it does finally start it pollutes the the neighbourhood with clouds of bluish white smoke. After a minute or so it starts to clear but it is misfiring and clattering. I think the injectors need a service but the only real change is the gloplugs which I I have changed to the parallel type. They are working when I remove one and tested it but not very convincingly It did glow but not as much as I would have expected, How should these plugs be powered. I found a rather confusing Britpart diagram which seemed to suggest that they should be connected to the ballast resistor in the normal way. Is this correct? Comments would be much appreciated.
J

No ballast resistor not required they need 12V supply.

Can you post a pic of the connections near bulkhead inc ballast resistor and another near no 1 plug, no earth to block needed as the series type

Thanks for the replies. In the meantime I tested one glow plug across the battery and got a very satisfactory effect! Then replaced said glowplug and got a loyal assistant to connect the the plugs directly to the battery while I started the engine. It started immediately but was still very smoky until it started to clear but still very lumpy running. Removed the injectors and had them tested by a very experienced diesel specialist who pronounced them to be in good order. I haven't refitted them yet but I now have two problems instead of one .
I can easily connect the glow plug feed to the input terminal of the ballast resistor but I assume that there will be an increased current flow through the now-parallel glow plugs. The brown /red wire feed is a substantial wire but will the starter switch itself handle this increase in current ?
Second problem now is why is the engine so smoky on startup ?
Any advice will be most gratefully received. I would like to give the engine a bit of an italian tune up but unfortunately it isn't in a road legal state at the moment.

Glow plugs need to be on before starter motor, is your ignition switch a Diesel version or Petrol.
If diesel should be a mid position where glow plugs power before starter motor you need to hold it in this position for a few seconds.
Later engines a timer relay which is powered when ignition comes on and stays on a little while after start to stop the smoke.IE 200tdi

Picture of heater plug type and how you have them wired would help. The ignition should handle the currant but you can always chuck a relay in the mix just to make sure. I changed mine when I first got it to the modern ones and aint had any problems in six years.

Series 3 diesel in the family from new. I have mimicked the starting procedure and it works fine with the new parallel heater plug upgrades. Clearly the current drain is much higher than the original series-type plugs plus ballast resistor and I really don't want to fuse the contacts in the steering column lock starter switch hence the question. I think a relay may well be the safest route.
The problem I can't resolve at the moment is just why it is so very smoky on start up. I have been blaming the heater plugs and/or injectors but this now seems to be wrong.

Hard to tell without photos or video. They are all smokey to some extent on first start up, especially when the ambient temp drops this time of year. I was quite concerned about mine for the first year or two of ownership but I was assured that it was normal for the technology of it’s time. The big question is if it clears when warm / hot. Could be be valve stem oil seals or maybe just needs a slight pump tweak to adjust timing.

Is it worse than this:

My old (but good condition) Perkins will smoke quite a bit on a cold start and needs to run before driving off, even then it needs a mile or two. Its a combination of low presure injection (bigger dropelets) and indirect injection which means the combustion chamber is slow to warm up so fuel condenses on the surfaces and that means you have to put a lot more in to get anywhere so it gets very smokey. I would try a long run up to temp.

The old Deltics, must have good batteries hard to tell when it actually came off cranking