Glow Plug Re-Wiring

MaxB · Post by **MaxB** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 1:18 pm

I used a Ford starter relay I got for $10.00 from Autozone.. I put it on the strut tower between the washer bottle and brake area. I ran the old wire from the firewall fuse to the glow plugs on one of the large terminals after putting a larger eye terminal on it. I ran a 10 guage wire (which I'm not sure if it is large enought from the battery positive terminal to the other large terminal on starter relay. I then took the wire from the original relay to the firewall fuse and hooked that to the "S" terminal on the relay. Now, the system works with the same timing as the original system, but the load doesn't go through the original terminal. I'll take picture if anyone is interested.
I believe I need to use a heavier than 10 gueage wire from battery to relay plus rig a 50 amp fuse in the circuit.
I actually haven't tried it yet as I just wired it last night and still have to put it back together.

MaxB

TIP: When trying to get those small 8mm nuts back on the glow plugs, use a magnatized common screw driver. With a few tries, I was able to actually put the nut back on and partially threaded down with just the one screwdriver, although I found out later two (one magnatized and one not) worked better. You can actually turn the nut with the magnatized screw driver. If you catch the nut on something and drop it, it makes it easy to pick it back up.

coke · Post by **coke** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 9:50 pm

This is an image of the map I made for the under hood relay mounting. It contains a legend for what terminals need what, and what wires to tap into under the hood to make the relay work as designed. Please note that terminal L is for the glow plug indicator light on the dash board. Its green/white and contained in the harness for the dash board. Not hard to locate at all.

Post by **Fatmobile** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 3:27 am

I was thinking of putting this in the technical writeups fora.
It's been a sticky here for awhile but if anyone has more to add this would be a good time.
I still have a couple Ford starter relay pics from my GTI and Golf glowplug setups that I should post here.
Couple more weeks and we'll this post to the technical fora.

Vincent Waldon · Post by **Vincent Waldon** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 9:20 pm

Pictures are exactly what's missing at this point... go for it !!

Post by **Fatmobile** » Mon Jul 09, 2007 2:15 am

On my Rabbit GTI diesel I put the fuse right after the battery:

From there it went to the Ford starter relay:

It is triggered by the glow plug relay so it operates normally but the glow plugs wires don't come into the passenger compartment.
It can also be triggered by a manual pushbutton on the dash.

I thought I had a picture of how I mounted my Golf manual glowplug setup but I don't see.

tawney · Post by **tawney** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 8:11 pm

When I re-built my '81 caddy a few months ago, I wired each glow plug separately, but temporarily just attached them to the wire that previously attached to the buss bar. Just last weekend I installed a small fuse panel that worked really well. It has a bolt to attach the wire coming from the relay, and spade connectors to attach each wire, with a fuse for each one. There are actually six connections, so I used one, (with a 5 amp fuse,) to run a wire to an LED mounted on the dash; now I know when the GP circuit is on, and when it's off, and I can check each plug separately for continuity. One thing I would do differently if I could: I would run a different color wire to each; it would be a bit easier to check continuity at the end of the wire rather after removing it from the connector, rather than reaching down to the plug itself with a probe. The fuse panel is made by Cooper Bussman, model #15600-06-20. Here's a photo.

Vincent Waldon · Post by **Vincent Waldon** » Sun Jan 27, 2008 7:23 pm

While working on my AAZ I decided to pimp out the glow plugs... we northern Canadians need the system in perfect working condition at least 10 months of the year:

http://vincewaldon.com/index.php?option ... &Itemid=28

Comments/questions welcomed... perhaps I have too much time on my hands ???!!!!

Vince

Greenmachine · Post by **Greenmachine** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 12:59 pm

Vince, I really liked your setup and write-up. I pimped mine too, but couldn't find the same parts. This is what I found, the solenoid on the left and the fuseblock on right:

Installed on firewall where old flat fuse was:

Made a huge difference for my GP performance and cold starts.

I was thinking I might throw a switch to dash on one part of the relay to disable it so that the "automatic" system could be interrupted and plugs could be cranked for as long as one wants for those super cold starts. Thoughts?

Vincent Waldon · Post by **Vincent Waldon** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 1:25 pm

Nicely done... and I suspect your fuseblock is more robust than the standard glass-fuse type I used.

BTW, I really like your use of heat-shrink and wiring loom... looks very professional !!

Diesel Dean · Post by **Diesel Dean** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 8:30 pm

I have cut a glow plug harness out of my rusted out parts truck. I would like to install it in my 85 Jetta that I converted to diesel. I have the harness out and on my bench testing how it will work. I am able to get the glow plugs to work but they don't shut off. I am sure it would work with a push button but I would like it to work as a stock set up. When I have the wires from terminal 30 and 50 tide together and touch the 86 wire to 12 v the plugs work but just stay on. How do I set it up to work with appropriate shut off time.

Vincent Waldon · Post by **Vincent Waldon** » Mon Mar 17, 2008 8:54 pm

At the very least you're missing the temperature part of the circuit ( the T terminal as labeled on the relay drawing)

The glowplug relay needs to see a temperature signal to decide how long the plugs should stay on... without a temp signal the relay will just stay on for a really really long time... 30-45 seconds.... which sounds alot like what you are seeing.

If you follow the labels on the relay completely you should be good to go.

Diesel Dean · Post by **Diesel Dean** » Tue Mar 18, 2008 5:03 am

I will install it on the car this weekend like the wire diagrams shows and see what happens.
Thanks

robmee · Post by **robmee** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 12:10 pm

I am doing something like this, I will post some pics , I just need to know something (sorry newbie) when I have the S side of the solenoid to a starter button (has 2 posts) do I put the other post of the starter button to a ground or a hot? I know it is a stupid question, but...

Going to take pics.

Post by **Fatmobile** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 6:28 pm

Hard to tell from my picture but it looks like the other post on the solenoid is grounded to one of the solenoid mounting bolts.

000utback · Post by **000utback** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 8:19 pm

This post thread was such an inspiration. I used the 6 x 15 block from Advance Auto (looks like Tawny's above), and a 4 - wire 10 gauge cable piece from the electrical shop. One wire is green/yellow, the other 3 are black and numbered. Various colored heat shrink on the blacks makes i.d. easier. I retained the original glowplug relay under the dash, and used the #6 from that as input to the fuse block.

For glowplugs 1 and 2, used a loop wire connector instead of the hook some recommended. Installed the wire, took the locknut almost tight, then used a bent bike spoke to guide the base of the plug into the hole while using the wire to control the top. Then a flat screwdriver to maintain forward pressure on the top and a long session with the open end wrench till it was IN. Then tighten the nut on the wire. (I did remove the metal fuel lines - no big deal). Overall the project went much better than expected. I think being able to prestart the wiring nut was much easier than trying to get that bus bar and nut back on in the original design.

Them are my thoughts, which is pretty much it for the day.

Former VWDieselParts.com Forum

Glow Plug Re-Wiring

I just did mine..

glowplugs

glowplugs

more fun with glow plugs

another re-wire