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If you get no amp draw then you have an open circuit in the glow plug. Sounds like the amp meter was telling you the truth. Test it on one of the new plugs before you install and see what you get for a reading. Putting in Motorcraft plugs?
Both the old and the new plugs were all Motorcraft. I bench tested all the new plugs before putting them in the engine. I know I don’t have an open in the circuit because I previously tested and had 12V at all the connectors. But I also ran a wire from one connector to a plug (not yet installed in the block) and verified that it causes them to glow.
Your wiring should look something like this. The amp meter can actually go on either side of the battery I put it on the positive side as that would be where it would have to go if testing in the engine. Makes no difference which way it is connected if it is a 30- 0-30 meter as the needle can swing either way. It needs to be wired in series so all the current has to flow through the meter.
The bad set that I could off EBay said Motorcraft on the package and everything looked correct, however they only would draw around 10 amps. The controller would rapid cycle with those plugs. The good set of Motorcraft which I got from O'Reilly's drew 20 amps plus and the controller then would turn on for about 10 seconds and then would go to the rapid cycle mode. I also have an amp meter that will read up to 600 amps. When I tested all 8 at once installed in the engine I could measure a current draw of around 200 amps.
Point I am trying to make is just because the plug says Motorcraft means nothing anymore with all the China junk copies that seem to be floating around.
Sounds like you might have a starter issue, try this first before changing starter. Crank it and when it slows down quickly feel all the connections from the batterys to the starter for excessive heat. If you find a cable or connection that feels quite hot you have a high resistance point and would need to repair. You may feel a small amount of heat but should not be much on a good circuit. You can do the same on the ground side. If all seems normal than have fun changing the starter. You have had your batteries load tested, correct?
Point I am trying to make is just because the plug says Motorcraft means nothing anymore with all the China junk copies that seem to be floating around.
Sounds like you might have a starter issue, try this first before changing starter. Crank it and when it slows down quickly feel all the connections from the batterys to the starter for excessive heat. If you find a cable or connection that feels quite hot you have a high resistance point and would need to repair. You may feel a small amount of heat but should not be much on a good circuit. You can do the same on the ground side. If all seems normal than have fun changing the starter. You have had your batteries load tested, correct?
They’re all from my local Ford dealerships so you’d hope you can trust them. But it is what it is. Hopefully they’ll warranty the first bad batch.
New batteries. Recently I already disconnected all grounds and positive connections, cleaned the terminals, fasteners, and threads because it only cranked slowly. It was cranking normally for a while after that but just started having this problem again.
I had my local parts store bench test my starter, it’s all good, did a lot of voltage drop tests and determined I should just replace the battery cables. Ordered an “OEM Replacement” set from CDD because I didn’t want to spend a lot of time swapping cables. Thus I didn’t just get a length of wire from the parts store. They were not OEM at all. Multiple lengths of the cable are 6-9 inches longer than stock and the positive was missing a wire so I ended up having to modify the set up anyways. Despite that, it was a great upgrade. Engine cranks significantly better now.
Still wasn’t able to get the engine to fire. Occasionally, it would bump a little on a couple cylinders but not consistent enough to run at all. Did a compression test and I’m getting low compression on all my cylinders. About 220 PSI. I was hoping that the valve’s were leaking so I removed the valve cover and rocker arms on cylinder 5, then pumped compressed air through the glow plug port. Ideally air would have come out the exhaust or intake manifold. But unfortunately it was coming out the oil filler tube. That’s telling me that the air is leaking past the piston rings, into the oil pan, then out the tube. That’s why I have low compression.
You will always have some air leakage past the rings, reason is ring gap. To really know how much is leaking you need to do a cylinder leakage test. It will tell you in percentage how much is leaking. I do not recall and I have not looked back through your thread. Did you bore and install new pistons or just rering? You might put 3-4 squirts from an oil pump can into each glow plug hole and see if that will help get it started. Plug in the block heater if it works will help warm it up and may help in getting it started for the first time.
You will always have some air leakage past the rings, reason is ring gap. To really know how much is leaking you need to do a cylinder leakage test. It will tell you in percentage how much is leaking. I do not recall and I have not looked back through your thread. Did you bore and install new pistons or just rering? You might put 3-4 squirts from an oil pump can into each glow plug hole and see if that will help get it started. Plug in the block heater if it works will help warm it up and may help in getting it started for the first time.
I reringed the pistons but did not bore the block out at all. This engine has already been rebuilt, to what extent I do not know, but it has a reman tag riveted in next to the serial number. So hopefully they did not bore the walls out more. I compared the pistons and rings to another block and didn’t see a difference but I did not measure anything with a micrometer.
I do not own a cylinder leak down test tool and I also don’t know anyone that has one that can do the high compression pressures of a diesel. That’s why I did the same test (without the measuring tools). Spoke with the engine builder at my job and he also recommended adding oil to the cylinders and stated that once it starts running, the rings are likely to expand and then it’ll have higher compression. Hopefully that works.
Another guy said to use ATF instead of oil. Would you like to throw your hat into the ring with this one?
The thing with a cylinder leakage tester is it could care less about compression. You bring each piston up to TDC and then inject air into the cylinder. The meter is set first and then connected to the cylinder. It measures the precentage of air leakage. Know any GA pilots or mechanics? They use a similar tool all the time during annual inspections. I would use 30W oil and not a great deal, maybe 3 pumps. All you are wanting to do is seal the rings to help it start the first time.
What size rings did you install and did you check the end gaps first?
I used the excess 15W-40 I had laying around and it worked wonders! Instantly it wanted to fire a lot more quickly. Got it started today and left her running for a little over half an hour.
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