The Mystery of Digby’s repeating Glow Plugs…!

About a month ago, as I ploughed my way through the many and various Delica forums from around the world, I watched a video from someone who was having problems with cold starting their Delica, and I noticed that the way the glow plug indicator and the relay worked on a very similar vehicle to ours, was quite different. So much so, I made a video of my own and posted it to the worldwide Delica Owners Club page of Facebook and asked for comment.

I received a bunch of replays from around the world that basically said that what was happening was not what they normally experienced, (EG “Glow plug timer/relay buggered. Glow plug should glow for about 3 - 5 seconds and then switch off after starting when the engine reaches desired temp”, or “ Hmm, never seen or heard a relay switch on/off like that at a regular interval or even one that does that.”

As I had Harry the Mechanic coming around to do some other work, I asked him about the way the glow plugs were working, and he agreed that it did not seem normal in his experience too… He was also breaking a Series 1 Delica and had a spare glow plug relay & ECU on hand and would come round and take a look at Digby and replace the current units if he found anything suspicious.

Well, what do you know….? Upon further examination, Harry the Mechanic found an aftermarket glow plug timer, fitted by a previous owner, with an 'Afterglow' function that kept pulsing the relay & plugs for about 10 seconds after the initial coil light goes out. He wasted no time in removing the aftermarket unit, replace the ECU and Relay and now everything working as it should do….. Cheers Harry….

It just goes to show, you never know what someone else has done to your beloved Delica until something goes wrong…..

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