I have a dead glow plug (one) that's been dead for ~2 years. Is there any reason to hurry and replace it?

I hear of glow plugs that swell and are hard to remove, but I don't know if 'deadness' affects that. I don't drive my truck much and I plug it in during the winter, so one dead glow plug isn't a big deal as far as a starting issue.

Someday, i will pull the valve cover, do the 50 cent mod, check injector and rocker torque, and change this - but I wondered if the dead glow plug was time sensitive.

Thanks!

 

I dont know if it is time senditive ford suggest replaceing at 150k. Dead should not cause a swell. I did not relpace mine until they all went bad and two swelled up on mine and I had to pull the heads. Not fun.

 

Swelling of the glow plugs is caused by the heat cycles they go through. If it is dead, it does not have a chance to swell anymore.

 

I didn't change my dead #3 glow plug 3 years ago, just lived with a little puff of smoke when cold. It blew out 3 weeks ago! not a fun thing to have. it beat the valve cover in to remission, blew the oil fill tube out of the valve cover and made the valve cover gaskets start leaking. also these things don't run so good with all the compression blowing into the engine.

 

I've never heard of that. What would make a dead glow plug blow like that? Just because the element no longer works, I didn't think that would make them hit the eject button.

I had a spark plug blow out on my 64 pick up many moons ago. I can imagine the sudden uh-oh moment you had when that thing went.

 

don't know why, the tip was missing, I found the top connector and the barrel inside the valve cover. I was expecting a bad injector when I went in to find the problem. (scanned with AE and a code for cylinder 3 failing cct) I didn't take time to bore scope the cylinder as it had been a 14 hour day on a service call and I had to go back the next day to finish. so i just put another glow plug in and ran it.
it had unscrewed from the head! I just put another one in and went to bed so I could go on a service call the next morning.

I need to pull it or the injector and scope the cylinder and check for damage, I think I have lost some power so there might be some damage, or turbo damage.