I have put an 84 cab and wiring harness on an 86 frame 4X4 with 86 engine. I hooked everything up but have no power to glow plugs. I've got 12v. across the power relay. I put a light between the glow plug side and ground and turned on ignition. No light. The glow plug light in the cab dosen't come on either. The fuseable links don't look burnt. I have continuity from the out side of relay to the glow plug connector. The engine cranks. The 84 ran before I made the switch. The only thing I didn't change over is the controller and I broke the one from the 84 trying to get it out. What have I missed? I'm just about ready to open a vein!

 

kupuni,
First welcome to FTE and the IDI diesel forum.

Glow plug relay has four terminals on the early style.
Two big ones, two little ones.
The two big ones,
The front one has a wire from the battery positive to it, it is always hot.
The rear one has a black wire pink stripe that goes to the dash light and two orange with white stripe wires that go to the glow plugs throough the wiring harness.

The small terminals,
The one closest to the fender has a black wire on it that goes to a good ground. (The inner fender is plastic so it has to go to metal somewhere on the fender.)
The one closest to the engine has a purple wire on it. This wire comes from the controller at the rear of the passenger side head. This wire has power on it to energise the relay when the glow plugs are supposed to turn on.

Two connectors that need checked are where the engine harness plugs into the chassis harness, the purple wire and the two orange wires go through that connector.
Also the IP power goes through it. Do you have power to the fuel shutoff solenoid when the key is in the run position?

Also did you get the connector on the top of the glow plug controller correctly?

 

Thanks for replying, Dave. Went through everything again. Have power to fuel shutoff but still no power to glow plugs. The book says to check fuses and replace. I have a fuse block in the cab with no cover so I don't know what fuses what. I pulled all the fuses but none were burnt. And there are the fuseable links that have continuity. Is the controller bad if I get no light when I put a light between the glow plug side of power relay and ground? If so, how do you get the thing out without breaking the casting or even reaching it at in the back of the engine?

 

Safest way, convert to manual glow plugs.

Do a test.
Remove the purple wire from the glow plug relay.
Take a piece of wire and attach it to the relay where the purple wire was.
Touch the other end to the positive battery terminal.
If the relay clicks, you should then have power on the glow plug terminal, and the relay is good. Do be careful to only keep the power on the glow plugs for 10 seconds or you will burn them up.

To convert to manual,
Find a fuse that is only hot with the key in the ON position.
Run a wire from it to a push button switch mounted in a convenient place.
Run the wire from the push button switch other terminal to the relay terminal that had the purple wire on it.
PS...Since you are only energizing the relay, the wire to the relay does not have to be a big wire size, 14 AWG is plenty.

To operate the glow plugs, turn the key to ON, push the button for 10 seconds, start the engine.

 

Kupuni, I was having all sorts of problems with my 84 last weak, from replacing fuse links to replacing the relay and still had problems. I went the "push button" route, took me all of 20-25 minutes to install, works great! You can read my earlier post "yet another glow plug question" and get lot of good info, lol.

 

Thanks for the help. I finally got it started. It blows white smoke at idle and black smoke when I accelerate. Also got a lot of clanging on the passenger side of the engine. What's the possibility that all that smoke and clanging could be caused by a plugged injector? I don;t have a compression tester for a diesel engine.

 

First shoot a little PB blaster on all the injector line nuts.
Then work each line nut loose being carefull not to twist and kink the lines.
Then with all the lines tight start the truck.
Now with it idling loosen each line one at a time. If it drops the RPM tighten it back up and go to the next one. If you find ione that does not make any difference or the noise stops, you have a bad injector and you just found it.

The white smoke may also be one that is leaking fuel when it is not supposed to be.

If you have a local diesel fuel injection service, you could stop and see what they would charge to pop test the injectors and rebuild the ones that are weak. A properly spraying injector will give you better fuel mileage and power.

 

I cracked all the nuts 'til fuel comes out. The RPMs dropped a little on most but 2 or 3 were hard to tell. It sound s like a thrashing machine. The smoke is light gray at idle. Goes blacker when I accelerate sort of fast then gets lighter. There is LOTS of smoke. I put my hand over the exhaust and it's smooth. I put a stick along the block just over the exhaust manafold on each side in several places. Everything sounded about the same. I've got a D-4 cat that's not as noisy as this Ford. I'd like to know what's making that thrashing sound or why is making that thrashing sound? It would be great if you would tell me that that's what it's supposed to sound like. Can I, Should I, try to lean the fuel some?

 

Without hearing it I would be hard pressed to say that is what it is supposed to sound like. I can tell you that you hear a lot more noise than you would on a gasser. I usually have to turn mine off in the drive throughs so I can hear the person at the window. But my ears are also not what they used to be.

The light grey could be oil and it could be unburnt diesel fuel.
After you take your hand away from the exhaust do you smell raw diesel fuel?
I almost suspect the couple of cylinders that did not make much difference in RPM have injectors that are either leaking fuel or not spraying correctly or both.

I would hate to tell you to get a set of new injectors only to find out it is drinking oil.

Speaking of drinking oil, you probably need to service the CDR valve. It is located on the rear of the intake throat under the air cleaner. Two bolts hold it on and it goes through a grommet into the valley pan. It needs to be removed and let sit in a pan of gasoline for a couple of hours. Agitate the gasoline inside the CDR by covering the holes with your hands and shaking it with gasoline still inside it a couple of times while it is soaking.
Do not poke inside or blow compressed air into it, there is a diaphram inside that will be ruptured. The CDR is like a PVC valve on a gasoline motor. It controls the vacuum to the engine internals. Over time it gets gunked up with oil and does not work any more, it can cause it to suck engine oil into the intake.
After you soak it several hours and agitate it, when you look inside it should look almost new. When it does, drain out all the gasoline you can then lay it aside to dry. einstall when dry.