This weekend I am planning on doing some work on my Glow Plug system. I will be replacing the relay on the controller since it is buzzing very loud and I have a Lifetime Replacement warranty. I also have 8 replacement ZD-9 glow plugs to replace any burnt out ones that I may have. The one's in the van are about 4 year/100k miles old.

My biggest question is on my corroded GP connectors. I bought a set of 8 of these for replacements:


My concern is the current length of the connector wires in the GP harness. Normally I would just clip off the old ones, strip the wires and attach the new ones......however, I am worried that clipping off the old ones will leave the wires too short to reach the GP. Anyone who has done this job that can weigh in on this? I am going from 4 year old memory, but I don't think there was a lot of excess wire on the connectors. Whatcha think?

 

Check out the other thread going now. Apparently a 6.0 glow harness will work. Cheap on ebay too.

 

I can help you here.

First, those are very nice connectors. Are they nylon? Where did you get them? I had to use the solid blue (PVC) plastic ones.

DON'T FORGET THE HEAT SHRINK TUBING

Those connectors will work fine but you should have bought more than 8 in case you mess up one or more of them. See my last note on crimping* them.

1: Remove the insulator material from the old connectors to expose the internal brass part of the original connector that is crimped onto the stranded (6 strands) gp wire. The old insulation material will be either brittle or soft and easy to remove.

The brass portion that is crimped to the stranded wire is very small diameter and crimped all the way through the strands so it would be next to impossible to remove from the wire strands. Cut off the excess portion of the brass beyond the end of the wire leaving only the part that is crimped to the gp wire and you will not lose any gp wire length BUT NOW the problem is that the crimped brass portion will NOT fit into the 14ga. end of the new connectors. Now you have 2 options:

NOTE: (from memory) The length of this brass portion that is crimped to the gp wire is only about 5/32 inch, (<4mm) very slightly more than 1/8 inch, so if you cut it off that is all the wire length that you will be losing. So, cutting it off is Option A.

Option B: If you want to preserve that 5/32 inch (<4mm) of wire length you COULD use a dremel tool (mini grinder) and delicately grind down that crimped brass part to fit into the 14ga end of the new connectors and you won't lose any wire length. I originally wanted to do that but I didn't have a dremel tool at the time. Since I had enough wire length I just cut that brass part off.

*Crimping: This will be easier to do and you can get a better crimp if you can disconnect the harness where necessary to get the ends out far enough from the glow plugs and the injector lines to have easy access to work on the ends. Also, REMOVE the Air Cleaner. I didn't do either and it's very difficult to get a standard wire crimper (with the crimpers on the inside edges of the handles) down in there far enough to get a good strong crimp on the new connectors. That is how I wasted a few connectors.

Also, IF you have a wire crimper with the crimping part on the END of the tool, that will make it easier if you are doing this with the harness in place.

Hope that helps.

 

I will post a link to where I got them. I am pretty sure I just googled it and got them of ebay or amazon.

I am about way through replacing these and have an issue I needed help with. I have replaced all 4 connectors on the passenger side as well as 1 GP that was out. I then tested it by turning the key to the ON position. My WTS will only blink. This is odd since prior to replacing the connectors and the burn out GP it would cycle normally, except slightly shorter than expected. I want to use my meter to test each connector and ensure they are getting current. Which post on the GP controller to I ground or jump to send current to the GP's? (see pic below). I know the bottom right terminal with the double yellow wires is voltage from the battery:


Is it possible that the reduced resistance of the new connects are now allowing controller to sense the burned out GP and just flash?

 

the large terminal with the "Z" strip is GPR output. with key off, check resistance between the connector and the wire connected to the bottom of the "Z" strip opposite the GPR.

 

So I finished with the GP Connectors and found a total of 3 GP out as well. After hooking everything up I turned the key to the on position and watched the WTS light. It Stayed on quite a bit longer than it had been and when it went out the van fired up......however. I noticed some smoking from the passanger side battery area. When I inspected it I found that it was in the bunch of wires in the pic:


I unwrapped it and found that I had fried the fusible link in the pics below. There are 2 of them that are inserted in a red and green wire that loops back into the wrapped wires that run in the harness above the engine. Any idea what this is? Any special way to install the links, besides cutting them out and soldering,crimping in a new one? Does this point to something I messed up, or could it simply be that now I am pulling more for longer since the GP are cycling correctly?



I also found this broken wire, but it looks like it has been that way for a while. It is with a bunch of really thin black ones that all go into 1.

 

There is a red with a green stripe wire that hooks to the bottom left terminal in this controller pick.

 

my bet is the melted wire made contact with ground and melted the fusible links.

 

I hope you are right. I picked up an 18ga fusible link since no one had a 20ga. I will clean up the exposed wire and try agian. Kinda weird because the exposed wire looked like it had been that way wor a while.....the copper had started to turn green etc.

Do fusable links just get tired over time? I can't think of anything that i touched that would have grounded something out, but it's weird that it happen right after I was messing with stuff.

 

i have seen them just "go" for no apparent reason.
then once replaced everything was fine.

 

Hope your right. Not really wanting to spend the weekend chasing a short somewhere.

Picked up a new GP relay as well, since I noticed it was buzzing pretty bad. Enough for me to think "What the heck is that?" when it kicked in.

 

20 ga Fusible Link- Pico 5557PT. I get them from Parts Plus.
The Red/Green wires supply power to the GPC, FSS, Cold Idle Solenoid and Cold Timing Advance.

 

I got things fixed up and running again. I cut out the blown fusible link and repaired all the wires:

While replacing the GP relay I also found some damaged sheathing around one of the terminals that looked like it might have made contact with one on another post:


However, while I did the GP connectors I had also rehooked up the High Idle/Cold Advance that I had wired to a switch. I noticed the light up on the switch was acting weird, so I pulled the switch and found that the ground wire had come in contact with the power supply wire for the switch. I unhooked all the switch wiring and pulled the switch.

The WTS light stays on as expected now and the van fires off within 2 rotations of the starter. I did notice that I don't hear the clicking for the after glow, with the new controller the GP's just stay on (not cycling) for about 5-6 seconds after the WTS light goes off.

I also replaced both batteries. The van calls for 27 series, but I measured and the 65 series would fit. It got me some more CCA's and reserve capacity.

Glad it's back up and running without too much trouble.