[Vwdiesel] cycling glowplugs

[SLATERSFB at aol.com]

My '81 N/A pick up has direct drive starter & never seems to crank very fast ever, so glowplugs get cycled twice at most. This leaves enough battery to start.
On the other hand, Gina, my '91 N/A Jetta and daily driver, has gear drive starter which spins engine much faster, so I only cycle glowplugs once. So far she always starts best this way.

By far the the biggest influence on cold starts I have found to be the use of synthetic oil. Up until this year I had always used 15w40 fossil oil & start up below zero degrees F was always dicey. This year I switched to 15w50 Mobil One. The coldest it has been here so far is -12F & I had no problems starting either vehicle. With fossil oil, the pick up never would have started; Jetta, maybe. I know that where you are temps get much colder than this, but synthetic oil's gotta help. 

I played around with glow plugs on 6 volts; they glow dull red at that voltage, and each one draws about 6 amps. Probably need lower voltage supply for longevity of plugs. I don't know if old toy train transformer can handle those amps, but that is a thought. 

Bob in NY