to regulate it would simply be a resistor but then the GP's wont heat right or at all. I can score motorcraft gp's for 14.50 at the ford dealer. Im in canada on vancouver island, That friggin bozo quoting 20 is wholesale if full of a magaton of ****.

 

Then what does the controller on the head do?? It seams like my trucks only wiring mod is a switch going to the stud on the fender well controller. I could at least know how many volts my plugs were getting but my wife was to busy this afternoon.

 

Was the wire from the switch going to one of the large terminals on the relay?

192 amps is the draw when the glow plugs are heating.

Your 83 engine should have ZD1A glow plugs, spade terminal on them.
Also the controller on the 86 and older systems is famous for failing with the glow plugs turned on, resulting in toasted plugs.

With the size wire Ford used in the glow plug harness, with that much load the voltage drop by the time the power gets to the glow plugs is within reason for 6 volt plugs.
Just make sure your 10 count is close to 10 seconds.

Using 6 volt plugs in a 12 volt vehicle is the reason they heat so fast.

I have been using manual glow plugs for 10 or 12 years in my 86, and only have a few failed plugs in that amount of time.

PS if it don't say Motorcraft/Beru on the glow plug, it don't go in my engines.
And that includes my Power Stroke.

 

Thanks for the info, your saying that there is nothing that drops it down to 6v except the wires reduce the current? The GPC on the head just controls how long they stay on judging by engine temp and resistance to the GP's??

 

If you have an 83 block you have the thinner block casting. Mid 85 was when they addressed that problem. Unless your sure that block was swapped out for mid 85 or later you shouldn't use the block heater

 

The controller turns the relay on which allows power to the glow plugs. The controller only determines when and how long the relay turns on. The push button, when installed properly, turns the relay on when depressed. The operator becomes the controller. The push button makes it a more reliable system.

 

Im gonna do more research on my block, I know my valve cover is original, but I would like to know what people were doing to crack there block, using the block heater for 12 hours at 40*?? Is it when its -10 out that the metal cracks?? I use it very very sparingly (5 times in over a year), if I had working glow plugs I may only use it for 30 minutes while I am getting ready for work at this temp, but the last 3 days have been 25* here.

 

I got a set of motorcraft glow plugs with the spade connector from Rock Auto for 80 bucks shipped. I ran a wire from the GP solenoid to a heavy duty push button in the cab. It works awesome.

 

ditto here, been like that for a year now, no problems, no more burnt out plugs

i hit mine for 10 seconds then do what i need to at the pedal and the truck starts up within a few revolutions.

 

I have been useing a manual switch on mine for over 2 years now with the same set of motorcraft/berus with no failures as of yet. I am running the zd9's as that was all they had when I bought mine. I just swapped out the connectors. I paid $11.50 each for them.

 

+100 on using ONLY Beru glowplugs, badged as either Motorcraft or International. "Motorcraft" will be cheaper because the market is so much bigger. I just got a set of 8 from:

sales@dieselfiltersonline.com
www.dieselfiltersonline.com
(866) 574-1119 Phone
(973) 316-1238 Fax

Great guys, $9.99 apiece. Ordered them at 4PM, had them the next day at 11AM. (They're in New Jersey, I'm in CT, so that helped). O'Reilly is more Midwest, and they were still only $11.49 each or so. Dealer did want $25 each, which he didn't get. $20 wholesale is BS by the way. (These prices are for the ZD9's that my truck uses).

You know how sometimes you hear "Don't use such and such, they're junk", and you say yeah, whatever? Well I think this one is on the level. I took all 8 glowplugs out. Six were Motorcraft, two were Champions. All six Motorcrafts still worked, both Champions were dead as a doornail.

Get the Motorcrafts. Don't bother arguing with the parts guys who are telling you there's something wrong with your truck. They're not about to admit they're selling crap.

Once you've got 8 Motorcrafts in there, your problems should go away. If not, you can start looking at relays and controllers, but at least you'll be pretty sure it's not the damn glow plugs.

Final note: The six Motorcrafts came out great, and the two Champions were a pain. After the threads had come all the way out of the head, the tips didn't want to come out. They're slightly thinner that the Motorcrafts, so I can only conclude that they were slightly bent out of shape. To be on the safe side when you take glow plugs out, do the little trick of making sure that the piston is at TDC so a broken tip doesn't have far to go, and you have a chance of retrieving it through the injector port. (No, I didn't learn the hard way. Some other guy did, and posted a great procedure that you can find on this site).

Best of luck.

 

Unless that parts guy is driving an IDI, he has no idea.
The computer told him it was the correct plug, the computer also does not drive an IDI.
Most likely the guy that put the info into the computer did not drive an IDI either.

You will learn in this modern world, there are many "EXPERTS" out there posting videos, writing blogs and books.

But if they have no first hand experience, the info they give out is just second hand gossip.

You can learn a lot from books.
You can learn a lot from the internet.

The problem, what is real and what is BS that someone thinks is right.

I have been fairly deep inside an IDI, on several ocassions.



Don't think you can get much deeper without a drill.