[Vwdiesel] Electrical problem

[Erik Lane]

Oh, believe me, I checked!! :) They're all still looking good. I had a bad
connection with my meter so I actually pulled off the bus bar and had
removed one of the glow plugs before realizing that they were still good. I
even watched the one I had pulled out to make sure it still glowed red.

I'm *really* impressed that they managed to last that long. I never would
have expected it! I'm really happy with VW glow plugs in general in
comparison to those GM and Ford sorry excuses for a plug that fails every 6
months to a year. In 20 years of driving VW I've had less than 5 plugs ever
go bad. I've probably replaced over 100 between the GM and Ford trucks we've
had around. And I've got way more miles on the VW engines! (though to be
fair they have twice the cylinders per engine over the VW.)

On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 9:31 PM, Dave Cook <davevw at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
> I guess they worked long enough to drain the battery, but it would be a
> good idea to check and make sure none of the plugs burned out during that
> time.
>
> Dave Cook
>
>
> --- On Fri, 4/3/09, Erik Lane <eriklane at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > From: Erik Lane <eriklane at gmail.com>
> > Subject: Re: [Vwdiesel] Electrical problem
> > To: vwdiesel at vwfans.com
> > Date: Friday, April 3, 2009, 4:01 AM
> > Thanks everyone for your suggestions!
> > Fortunately (or unfortunately??) I
> > managed to find the problem before I came back to the
> > computer to see
> > everyone's input. I haven't had many alternators apart, but
> > it surprised me
> > to hear you say that an alternator can't have bad sections
> > in the way that I
> > was thinking, Loren. Although if it has just constant rings
> > like that I
> > guess it makes sense. I was thinking of it more like a DC
> > motor like a
> > starter I guess.
> >
> > It turns out it was the glow plugs. The contacts in the
> > relay were halfway
> > fused shut. I say halfway because I was able to force them
> > apart and they
> > now have a slight gap, but the thing is definitely not
> > trustworthy! The one
> > contact can wiggle around some in the housing, and neither
> > contact looks too
> > good - one is pitted and the other has extra material on
> > it. At one point
> > water got in there and caused some corrosion around the
> > microchip as well,
> > but it still worked good with that.
> >
> > So I pulled the brand new relay out of the car I'm getting
> > ready for the
> > road and put it in my driver so all is good again.
> >
> > That's quite a relief!!
> >
> > Thanks!
> > Erik
> >
> > Good call, Terry! Although I have a load tester I can
> > borrow from my
> > neighbor, so I could have done that myself. But I didn't
> > have the battery
> > charged enough yet. (I still wouldn't do it now, but the
> > car will start
> > solidly so I have it out of the shop and ready to drive to
> > school tomorrow.)
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Vwdiesel at vwfans.com
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> >
>
>
>
>
>