Manual glow plug switch, help!

[SunshineCoastMark]

Hi all, my 1991 L300 glow plug relay died yesterday, I have had random problems with it before never really 100% sure if the Van was going to start or not.
Long story short , I would like to replace this with a manual glow plug push button switch, splice in proper individual plug wires and anything else that will add some reliability to this start system.
What gauge wire do I use? Switch ? How long do you depress the switch for? any help is much appreciated.

[Bullwinkle]

Feel your pain. Went through the same exercise last fall and quite happy with the manual push-button solution. Linked to a post from last winter just below and if you scroll down about 2/3 down the first page, Raule Duke posted an overview and some pictures of how to wire one up.

When I installed mine he was super helpful in getting things sorted out and once you've got a handle on where are the bits and nibbles go, it's a pretty quick install. I've also added a small LED to my dash which lights up when there's power going to the busbar and have found it a good way to help diagnose the glow plug gremlins which we've all seen come up occasionally. The most difficult part, at least on a L400 is getting access to the glow plug trigger wire - if you have vienna-sausage like fingers, pretty tricky to get in there to splice a new lead.

http://www.delica.ca/forum/glow-plugs-g ... 12334.html

There have been some commercial solutions discussed on this board every so often but personally, the manual switch approach has been brilliant and with an intermittent switch to activate them, dead-simple operation.

Good luck but honestly, once you have the parts on hand and a basic sketch of your connections this is a pretty straight forward piece of work. If you're not comfortable mucking about with electrical whosawhatsits though, I wouldn't expect this to be expensive to have a shop tackle for you.

[Bullwinkle]

Oh man, need to read the post properly before responding...

Is it really the glow plug relay that's died or the ECU? Potential link of interest if it's actually the relay:

http://www.delica.ca/forum/l400-glow-pl ... 12101.html

There was a good discussion a while back and TardisDeli had posted some great troubleshooting/diagnostic procedures for the glow plug system but I can't seem to find it right now. Would be worth poking around the search tool to see if you can track that down.

Again, good luck...

[psilosin]

You can try and refurbish your glow plug relay for free if you have some basic soldering skills.

http://www.delica.ca/forum/l400-glow-pl ... 12336.html

I did mine last year and it's just starting to go wonky again now so it might not be a permanent fix but for the amount of time it takes its worth a try since a new relay is $$$.

[SunshineCoastMark]

I was actually wanting to bypass the relay all together and do away with relay ecu and anything else that will ultimately give me grief down the road. I had a small diesel in a sailboat with pushbutton glow plugs I loved the simplicity of that engine, I realize that doing it manually you risk burning out plugs etc. but if done right is it not more practical, any comments on the pros and cons of this are welcome. Here is a pic of a setup I am aiming at.

[nxski]

Or just run a wire directly from the battery to a switch to a set of 12v plugs.

[thedjjack]

Or just run a wire directly from the battery to a switch to a set of 12v plugs.

Should have a relay as 60amps is lots of power (need a big wire, (should have fuse/breaker since 60amp wire will burn the delica down if it shorts)) and a 60+amp fuse.

You can also wire an amp meter in to let you see if a glow plug stops working...