DIY glow harness and manual controller Q's

[tRustyK5]

DIY glow harness and manual controller Q\'s

I have an 85 6.2 with the 4 pin controller and no harness for the glow plugs themselves. I may be able to rob the glow harness off our parts rig but it's an 82 or 83 and has a different controller. Anyone care to walk me through wiring up a manual glow controller?

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Rene

 

[calcide]

Re: DIY glow harness and manual controller Q\'s

This has been covered a gazillion times, so a search will get you some good results. Here's the gist of a manual setup:

Make sure your glow plugs are AC Delco 60G units

If you can't get a factory harness, then wire your glow plugs in parallel. Make sure to use connectors that won't vibrate off or you'll be sad.

Use a ford starter solenoid and a manual switch to actuate them. Wire the solenoid directly to the battery.

I did this about a year ago and it GREATLY improved my cold starting. The truck will fire up nicely in the morning even when overnight temps were in the single digits F and it wasn't plugged in.

 

[Tybee]

Re: DIY glow harness and manual controller Q\'s

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Use a ford starter solenoid

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Why not use a 12 volt Relay? Im assuming the ford selenoid is just a remote relay. Is it cheaper?

 

[calcide]

Re: DIY glow harness and manual controller Q\'s

A ford starter solenoid is a 12V relay, of sorts. It is actually a power contactor, a relay designed to handle large currents for a short duration. You will have problems trying to find a continuous duty relay that will handle the 160 amps for the glow plug system. You can bet that it will cost a ton if you do manage to find one.

The best part about the ford solenoid is that it is about $5.00. I haven't seen real specs on the ford solenoid, but I figure that it could handle around 600 amps without any problems. Just don't try to run it for more than a few minutes continuously or the coil inside it might burn up. This isn't really a problem, since the glow plugs only need to run for about 15 seconds. I wait ten seconds, start the engine, then run them for another few seconds once the truck starts.

 

[Tybee]

Re: DIY glow harness and manual controller Q\'s

Thanks /forums/images/graemlins/thumb.gif