You can test the plug itself with a 12volt test light.

Instead of connecting to ground put your testlight on Bat +.

Then remove each wire from each plug and touch the tester to the glow plug terminal. If the light comes on the plugs good,no light means open plug and a change is required.

Test the main relay connections as well but move the tester end to batt-. check for power (test light on) the one terminal will have power full time and the other should have power when the relay clicks ie key on position.

The general ruel for the controler time on is anywhere from 15 to thirty seconds at 70 degrees (room temp) if it's shorter than that then your probably have plugs burnt out

It seems to me that all the stuff in the wmo that caused it to turn black not to mention the additives and detergents have to have a deleterious affect on a diesel engine, then there is the question of how much nasty stuff you are putting in the air.
It seems like cleaning wmo would be a perfect application for an oil pressure driven centrifuge, that is after all their intended purpose.

I tested all the glowplugs with a test light and they all pass. I then checked the relay, none of the terminals had power all the time. The large terminal with two heavy yellow wires attached seems to go to the power side of the starter solenoid up near the battery. I used a multimeter to check solenoid operation and it does indeed make contact when energized. The truck is warm so it only stays energized a short while 5 seconds or so, not as long as it does when cold. At this point the warm van still wouldn't start so I jumpered from the bat+ to the relay, I got power across from it but still no start. A touch of ether and it fired right up. Seems to me it's still got to be fuel. I'm gonna run it about 20 miles down the freeway, pick up some more D2 then come home and wait an hour.

I would love a centrifuge. I plan to build one for the garage run off an electric motor. I can't afford an oil driven one at this time.

One other comment that may or may not get me flamed. I am a hardworking father of five, mom has to stay home as we cannot afford daycare. I barely make my budget every month despite making good money and being as energy and financially conscious as possible. Does WMO put pollutants in the air? Don't know and frankly can't really afford to care right now. I can say this though, at 30-50% WMO there was no smoke out the exhaust unlike a worn out gasser engine, they smoke like crazy with what 1% oil seeping past the valve stems and rings? Aside from that doesn't a lot of WMO wind up burned in large industrial engines, ships, power generators, heaters etc.? Wish all I had to worry about was air quality, life would be so much easier. BTW two of those kids are stepkids, their loser father never pays his child support, owes us like 13K and rarely visits with them. He'd rather sit around drunk than be responsible, I call that social pollution and it's far worse that what comes out of my van's tail pipe.

Again I don't want to upset anyone, just pointing out what I beleive.

there's a fusable link at the starter solinoid terminal, that could be the problem, the two yellow wires are the ones that should have power full time the other side should be a stainless strip folded up which goes to another two wires (I think they are yellow too but memory aint so good) that feed each bank.

You problem may very well be fuel but regardless those glow plugs still need to work to start properly. There's a trick to getting them to stay on a little longer if your interested later once this problems solved

The fact that you care about what's coming out the tailpipe means your ahead of most.

As some one who is aware of the problems we face as a civilization with AGW and all I know what's coming down the pipe line so to speak and know the need for change in the way we opperate but I can totaly sympathize with your dilemma having had similar situations in trying to survive.

Bottom line,your not going to get any flak from me.

Hey rsr, no harm no foul, If I were in your position I'd be doing the same thing, not meaning to rag on ya, just bringing stuff up.

My issue with global warming is it's political and people like Al Gore and Goldman Sachs stand to make millions/billions off it while people like me pay the price. There simply is not enough data to know that mankind is the real source of global warming or and I've heard it called lately climate change. That said I am all for a cleaner environment and I believe the native americans had it right with respect to mother nature. The simple fact is however we have had 100+ years of industry and doing things certain ways, we are just now learning from a scientific point of view how to produce cleaner energy affordably. We cannot just go around smashing up all the old cars, requiring expensive emmisions repairs etc. without having significant effect on the poor and middle class. In my home we recycle. We also replace incandescent bulbs with CFL's as they burn out. I replace my leaking hot water tank with a new tankless and took advantage of the tax credit etc. Running WVO is great. The WMO I'm getting from a startup independent garage that likely can't afford waste removal right now, I pay him for the WMO and provided cleaned and reused chemical drums for him to collect it in. I've been scrapping cars and scrap metal since long before it was the "in thing". At each stage there was a profit or savings motivation. Anyway this should be in and OT forum or something. I just figure if I get all my friends to give me their old oil rather than dump it in the trash at least it's not in a landfill and it helps put food on the table.

Just got back from a twenty mile round trip on the freeway. Shut it down and it started hard again. Side note, the D2 in the van right now is not from one of my regular stations and the pump was labeled low sulfur diesel as opposed to ULSD like the stations I normally frequent. Can't help but wonder at this point if the D2 itself isn't dirty or wet or just plain old. I would have thought all stations had switched to ULSD by now.

12voltdan: any problem with temporarily running a heavy cable in place of the two yellow wires? Love to know the longer duration trick as well.

Is it possible I damaged the injectors? Only had like 60 miles on this blend and it runs great once started. Forgive me, this is my first diesel so I'm learning as I go.

quote:

12voltdan: any problem with temporarily running a heavy cable in place of the two yellow wires? Love to know the longer duration trick as well.

Nope. so long as it's temporary, it should have some cicut protection at some point but I could see me doing something like that.

And probably leaving it that way

To increase the duration take that stainless steel piece off and drill a 3/8" hole on the bottom just before the hole that mounts on the controller (not the relay side). That slows down the controller and was an update from International for our cold temps up here. It works up here anyway for what it's worth. Personaly I doubt there's any damage to the injectors since it runs fine when it starts and sounds like it's burning clean

I resect your position on AGW if I don't agree with it but that's a topic for the environmental thread and I don't need to bring that mess over here.

ULSD is mandated now,I could be wrong but I don't think anyone is refining with higher concentations of sulfur any more. That sticker is probably just old

Does it make sense to top it off with kerosene? I was gonna just fill it up with D2 to further dilute what's in the tank but wouldn't kero be better?

Thanks for the trick on the glowplugs, I'll definately do that.

My opinion on AGW (anti-global warming correct?) is still in process. I'm of the opinion that no matter what we do we should be as environmentally friendly as possbible. I recall when I first took the van in for a simple emmisions check, I was running a 50/50 WVO blend and it had unusually clean numbers for it's age, some where even zero. Made me proud considering the newer gas van I got rid of was barely passing. "I respect your position..." we need more of that in this world. If we could take the emotion out of some of this it seems to me we could make more progress in a positive direction. I'll have to visit the environmental section, maybe I could learn, or teach, something.

I'll make circuit protection a priority. Don't wanna find it burned to the ground some morning LOL.

Hmmm,


I topped it off with D2. Will not start without the aid of starting fluid, even if I've just shut it off. I came home, shut it off and went to restart it immediately and it wouldn't start. What really odd is normally if this things the least bit warm it fires up almost instantly, I rarely have to crank in for more than a few seconds. Now no matter how long I crank it won't start? Let's see I get about 14mpg and I've driven 35 miles since adding 5 gallons D2 yesterday, today topped off with D2 (8 gallons) and it's got a 22 gallon tank. I had maybe 5 gallons of my old blend in it when I started out, 75/25 WVO/D2, then added 10 gallons of the 50/50 WMO blend which had a little RUG in it and drove for 2-3 days with no issue then yesterday it starts this garbage. I'm figuring at this point there is at most 10% WMO in the tank. I just don't get it.

Earlier in this discussion I stated that my friend was getting around 30 MPG in his 7.3 IDI using a 50/50 blend, WRONG, I talked to him recently and he DID say 30 MPG but he meant that by adding the 50% WMO he was getting the EQUIVELENT to 30 - 31 MPG from the purchased DIESEL portion of the blend, totally misunderstood what he meant.

Based on my new understanding of his statement his ACTUAL MPG burning the BLEND is a much more normal milage of 15 to 15 1/2 MPG, sorry for the confusion, I should have realized this error earlier.

quote:

My opinion on AGW (anti-global warming correct?)

No, not in common usage. AGW is an acronym for Anthropogenic Global Warming [aka Al Gore Wierdness], the misguided belief that humans are causing the natural warming of the planet since the end of the last ice age some 15,000 years ago. They probably also believe that Neanderthals drove SUVs.

Global Warming [and Global Cooling] are natural processes that have been going on for billions of years. Anti Global Warming is as silly as Anti Gravity or Anti Sunrise.

Tim,

I refer to that as MPPG (miles per purchased gallon). I get WVO for free so 80% blend at 14MPG comes out to 70MPPG.

John,

That's my position, I find it kind of arrogant to assume mankind has that much control over the planet. I remember global warming was all the rage, then we get cold spells (something like 3000 record low's in the US this year) and it's now called climate change. I recall reading about a volcano eruption in the Pacific, scientists claimed it put out as much pollution as 100 years of industry. I work for a well renowned chemist who is also 83 years old, he doesn't believe the hype. He simply states that we cannot possibly have enough data to draw a conclusion either way. Still I can't see how it hurts to be environmentally friendly or stop our dependence on foreign oil. I think the solution to both is implement everything that's financially feasible. Solar, wind, biofuels, nuclear, domestic drilling, tidal generators, etc.

Been reading over at the dieselstop.com seems it's possible my IP is failing due to a part inside that wears out, not blend related.

quote:

I can't see how it hurts to be environmentally friendly or stop our dependence on foreign oil.

Neither can I, but that's an entirely different issue than thinking people cause Global Warming.
I don't use terrorist oil, all my diesel fuel comes from domestic sources. As well, all the diesel fuel used to grow the VO fuel I use comes from domestic sources. It would be easy to use significantly less Mid East oil, simply run locomotives and transport trucks on natural gas, and once that was established start running more vehicles on CNG. But it won't happen because more people are interested in getting rich off the status quo than making changes to make it a better, less polluted world.

I don't know, I keep thinking about this and something's just not right. This van has always started real easy when warm. After testing the GP's and finding a wire had no power I figure that must be what was wrong with the GP's all along. The guy I bought it from only had it a short time, was going to put the motor in his tow truck and changed his mind. he told me the PO had told him they'd put new GPs in it but they weren't working. Not having had the time to replace the GP's I've just been plugging it in at night on a timer, worked fine even through a very cold winter. I did have an IP go bad, something broke inside and the motor just cut out, this IP is a used one but appeared rebuilt as it had dabs of paint on the bolts. I got it a a local salvage yard. Since I've put this pump in the van has run fantastic, started even easier, more power, slightly better MPG, smoother, and the hunting I had thought was in the trans cleared up as well. I know it's possible for the IP to have gone bad again but I would think I'd of had some sign, rough running or hard starting, poor MPG. I drove it about 30 miles, got off the freeway and parked it, came out an hour later and hard to start and it's just gotten worse from there. Weird eh?

quote:

Global Warming [and Global Cooling] are natural processes that have been going on for billions of years. Anti Global Warming is as silly as Anti Gravity or Anti Sunrise.

I suppose human beings burning fossil fuels is natural as well, in some sense. IMO, anyone who thinks that human activity has not sped up the natural warming trend is not thinking clearly. The question would be: "how much has human activity sped up the warming process?"

Admittedly, it is hard to quantify. But it must be some amount.

There's no doubt that human activity has contributed to global warming, however that's quite different from the belief that humans caused global warming. It's been warmer before, and humans were not burning any significant amount of fossil fuels at those times.

quote:

Originally posted by Andrew M:
[QUOTE]
I suppose human beings burning fossil fuels is natural as well, in some sense. IMO, anyone who thinks that human activity has not sped up the natural warming trend is not thinking clearly. The question would be: "how much has human activity sped up the warming process?"

Admittedly, it is hard to quantify. But it must be some amount.

Not as hard as one would think. The marketing of oil has been recorded since the begining so we know how much was burned and how much co2 has been released. What the scientist have found however was that there wasn't as much co2 as there should have been with the numbers they had so clearly some thing was happening to remove that co2 from the atmosphere. Later research has now shown that there is indeed a carbon cycle at work that has been in place for billions of years cycling carbon from the air,oceans and rocks and the mantle underneath. Do we know exactly where each and every carbon atom is going? the answer is no but we do see through observation just how we are affectting the balance or "carbon budget" as scientists like to call it. That much is well established now. Burning fossil fuels leaves a specific type of carbon (c 12 isotope) that can be tracked and has been shown to be rising in a much higher percentage of the total atmospheric content.

These facts have been established in many peer reviewed papers so yes we do know how much we are putting out.

quote:

Originally posted by rsr911:



That's my position, I find it kind of arrogant to assume mankind has that much control over the planet. I remember global warming was all the rage, then we get cold spells (something like 3000 record low's in the US this year) and it's now called climate change.

We don't have any control over the planet nor can we think we can control co2 with engineering projects being bantied about in the media. All we are doing is upsetting the balance of co2 in the atmosphere. The planet, through it's natural processes is trying to clean up this mess but these natual "sinks" are slowing down (that has been established in scientific liturature as well) and the oceans are becoming more acidic as a result.

"Climate change" was a term first brought forth by Bush in his first term. It was given to him by a PR firm and used in one of his first speaches after opping out from the Kyoto protocol to make it sound less serious. He also used the term "sound science" to imply that the science was not established to create more confusion on just what was happening.

CBC up here had a documentry a few years back where they interviewed the man who coined the term for that speach and incidently he confirmed his own personal view that global warming was real. It however was his job to do this and he was paid well to do it.