Delica Canada | Mitsubishi Van Club

Hi all,

Having just recently purchased a used 91 L300 Chamonix 4D56 Automatic, I have searched through the wealth of knowledge this Forum has to offer and am very impressed! I'm very excited to become well versed in this community. However, before that can take place, I'm currently experiencing a starter issue and am in need of some advice.

A couple days ago the manual glow plug system (wired in by the previous owner) stopped working. I've yet to dig into what caused this issue as the manual button which starts the glow plugs clicks when depressed, however the respective click of the glow plugs operating which was previously present when the button is depressed no longer activates. This issue took place in the morning and required me to crank the engine for a much longer 10-20 seconds to start the van (20 degree Celsius weather).
Fast forward to the end of the day, I attempt once again to turn the ignition, with no help of the glow plugs, only for the key in the ignition to offer no resistance back and all the dash lights to turn off. I repeatedly fully turned the key only to feel nothing in the ignition lock cylinder. At this time, the radio and interior lights are still fully operational, leading me to believe the battery still has charge (a jump start attempt later confirmed this).

Any advice to the problems present (and hopefully solutions) would be greatly appreciated. The solution may be a loose/faulty connection, which I will be examining into closer detail this evening.

If it isn't already painfully obvious, I'm new to this community and apologize for my cluelessness with Delicas. I'm excited to take on the challenges that come with owning these beautiful vans, however I will require some help along the way!

The ignition lock is probably easy- the switch on the back of the lock can just fall out. Remove the steering column trim and I bet you'll find the electrical part of the ignition barrel is dangling. The usual fault is the black contacts section comes unclipped and falls out- you can usually just clip it back on.

Glow plug manual switch... could be a number of things, depending on how competently the switch was wired up. I'd trace the new wires from the switch, check for an inline fuse, and check where the wires terminate. If it's operating the original glow plug relay you'll find that under the drivers seat.

To give and update, after some electrical tinkering, I found lots of issues that may have led to this failure. I found the ignition fuse in the "Fusible Link Box", as well as the starter relay fuse, to both be toasted. Was able to replace the ignition fuse with a 16 gauge fusible link and some female ends, that required some bending with a set of pliers. For the starter relay fuse I was able trim off the end where the spade bit melted its surrounding plastic, and soldered a new connection to the infamous black and red wire which goes to the starter relay.

Just when i thought i fixed the issue with the new connections registering 11-12volts, still no current was reaching the tachometer After searching through these forms yet again, I decided to test the starter relay. Lo and behold, no power was going through. Im now currently searching for a place to buy a replacement starter relay (MB171745), if anyone has advice of where to purchase one online or in store (Calgary, AB), it would be greatly appreciated.

Growler,

The ignition lock sounds promising, I will check that out tomorrow morning. As for the glow plug manual switch, the wire just traces back to glow plug relay #1 (behind drivers seat, closet to body of van). I'm most likely going to tackle that issue once my baby is up and running again.

Thanks for the reply! Gotta say although this electrical problem solving is frustrating as all hell in the moment, looking back the work I've completed is quite gratifying

Yeah, genuine Mitsubishi starter relays are ridiculously expensive. Coombs County Auto said they would sell me one for $335. Check out my post on modifying a $10 relay for use in the Delica:

http://www.delica.ca/forum/viewtopic.ph ... ay#p122086

Oh, and welcome aboard as a new Delica owner. Good to see you have an abundance of youthful enthusiasm! You're gonna need it...

- Morganizer

Apologies for the late reply regarding this item. I was able to get her running once again!

As for the starter relay, after attempting and failing to find a non OEM replacement at Napa/Auto Value, I opened up the relay to see the copper was grounding out on the metal frame preventing it from engaging the switch. After rearranging the internal wires to prevent this from happening, she worked good as new in a bench test. This however did not rectify the starting issue.

I took Growlers advice and checked the ignition lock cylinder. Turns out there was a loose set screw on the back of the unit preventing the internals from contacting and completing the circuit. This was easily fixed by tightening the set screw to regain contact in the ignition lock cylinder. This last adjustment did the trick as the Delica was able to turnover easily after this.

Finally, with the van turning over once again, I could tackle the glow plug issue. After following the advice listed on the below link, I concluded that both glow plug starter relays on my super quick system were busted.

http://forum.retro-rides.org/thread/917 ... ast?page=2

I picked up two new 12V 80a solenoids from Auto Value (which from the other documentation I've read, should be plenty to handle the load implemented on it). Below is a link to the exact model I got (came out to ~$20 CAD each opposed to the $69 on the listed website).

http://www.butlerautomart.co.nz/our-ran ... X3302.aspx

If i were to replace these again, I would opt out for a different model. If not tightened enough, the outer brass threads will ground out on the solenoids body. This realization came after a long night of tinkering on the Delica. But with this last repair, the van was fully functioning once again!


Post repair I was admiring this unique van, only to notice a emblem on the tailgate with the name "Jean" on it. While this Delica will undergo numerous changes over the coming months, totally changing her personality, I still feel weird about renaming her. So on behalf of Jean and myself, we'd like to thank Growler and the numerous forums I've read during this repair for their extensive knowledge. Without you guys the van would probably still be sitting in my driveway.

Until next time!