Just decoked / got the glow plugs to work after 8 years

[Karen Lea Rainey]

Hi, I just wanted share some success with you, you never know it might be useful info for another keen boater.

 

I purchased a 40ft 1989 springer in good shape 3 weeks ago,

In the boat history file (quite a big one) when it was purchased in 2008 the advert by the Marina said needs easy start to get it going, but when its warm it will go easily,

 

Having used the boat for a couple of journeys including picking it up from the marina, it was clear that it still had the problem 7 to 8 years later. There were 2 half empty cans of easy start on the boat, I reluctantly had to use it each time to get it going.

Anyway New Glow plugs arrived so I set about changing them today. Having seen the You tube video on getting rid of the carbon with a drill bit ive had a go.

The old plugs came out pretty easily without breakage, it was a bit tight with a 17mm spanner but i made it on all cylinders. i had to undo 2 of the fuel pipes to get my spanner in, it took ages in tiny tiny turns but all of the glow plugs came out successfully.

I got my 4 mm drill bit and poked it in the hole a bit obviously hitting a wall of "caked carbon", the glow plugs were obviously sitting in this and heating the carbon and not the combustion chamber.

It was a pretty solid wall of black carbon,

After poking the drill bit in very carefully and keep wiping it i finally broke through the cake.

My guess is it would be about 1inch of carbon sitting all around the core of the glow plug, I couldnt get my 12v drill in in any of the holes so a bit of twisting / shaking/ pushing in with the drill bit in my hand and the held very fastly with my Mole grips it broke through the crusty cake of carbon (almost swallowing the drill bit which was about 3 inches long)

 

Mole grips held it tightly, then grease a bit more on the drill bit and keep twiddling and scratching and twisting to get some more of the black sooty stuff out.

New plugs in after about 20mins working on each glow plug hole with the drill bit.

 

Wired up, ready to go and guess what, after waiting for 30 seconds for the glow plugs to hot up in the chamber.

 

IT STARTED FIRST TIME AND WAS I SO PLEASED WITH MYSELF, its probably the first time the engine has started without the dreaded EASY StART in more than 8 years.

 

 

I do however have a question now,

When i broke through the cakey carbon with the drill bit it felt as though i may have pushed some into the chamber where the fuel explosion of heat and air takes place.

I thought that the soot would probably come spitting out of the exhaust for a few minutes but i couldnt spot anything.

I took it a trek up to the next winding hole about 1 1/2 miles and it ran beautifully.

Where can this soot go hopefully its not back around the glow plug.

Any ideas what will happen to it?

Ps Im chuffed to bits with todays efforts, i'm a butcher by trade and enjoy playing with the boat on my days off.

[Stilllearning]

First of all, well done for doing such a neat and fiddly job successfully.

On the question about the carbon, it was probably crushed into powder by the compression of the pistons going up and down, then burned and spat out before you had a chance to notice.

There may be some left in the combustion chambers, and others on here, such as Richard, will no doubt have more and wiser comments to make than me.

Now you can just enjoy the easy starting without Easystart.

[RLWP]

The soot is in the exhaust silencer, don't worry about it

 

Sounds like a very satisfying job

 

Richard

[pete.i]

What you didn't get out on the end of your drill bit will have dropped down into the combustion chamber. From there it will get sucked into the cylinder and then blown out through the exhaust valve. I very much doubt that you would actually see it in the exhaust emissions it will probably be just a black powder. It wont do any harm and, to be honest, there wouldn't be that much of it. Hopefully your old glow plugs came out with all the tips all in one piece and it wasn't glow plug tips that you pushed out into the combustion chambers although I very much doubt that even that would do any harm. I dont think you would have hit a solid wall of carbon as the tips of the glow plugs extend out of the block wall slightly into the combustion chamber. I am assuming that you have a BMC 1.5 diesel and a couple of the glow plugs are a bit awkward to get at because of the injection pipes. I bought a set of ratchet ring spanners and they make removal of the glow plugs much easier.

 

As I have said I am assuming you have a BMC 1.5 diesel and if you have there is a PDF workshop manual here:-

 

http://the-norfolk-broads.co.uk/downloads/bmc1500L-diesel-workshop-manual.pdf

[Karen Lea Rainey]

Thats great news about the sooty carbon, no worries there now.

replying to kebs comment about the amount of soot, my 3inch drill bit would only go in about 1/2 way before it stopped, i really do believe that there was about 1 inch of carbon surrounding the tips of the glow plug. I cant believe the last owner put up with it for so long, i would probably guess that it would have cost around 5 to 6 hours labour plus the plugs maybe £3-400 and no guarantee that it would work. The glow plugs came out without to much trouble so my guess is they changed the plugs fairly recently but didnt clear the carbon ,hence the new plugs still wouldnt work, by the way they were durite plugs for the 1.5 bmc cost £32 plus £3postage from Dorridge autos ebay trader.

[p6rob]

Well done. It's always great when you manage to fix a long standing fault.

It's a job I've been intending to do for the last six months as a preventative measure. My engine starts fine at the moment and I'd like to make sure it stays that way. It seems a well looked after BMC engine is capable of being utterly reliable.

 

Rob

[X Alan W]

Thats great news about the sooty carbon, no worries there now.

replying to kebs comment about the amount of soot, my 3inch drill bit would only go in about 1/2 way before it stopped, i really do believe that there was about 1 inch of carbon surrounding the tips of the glow plug. I cant believe the last owner put up with it for so long, i would probably guess that it would have cost around 5 to 6 hours labour plus the plugs maybe £3-400 and no guarantee that it would work. The glow plugs came out without to much trouble so my guess is they changed the plugs fairly recently but didnt clear the carbon ,hence the new plugs still wouldnt work, by the way they were durite plugs for the 1.5 bmc cost £32 plus £3postage from Dorridge autos ebay trader.

You could test/or have tested the set you took out They may be OK, if so you have a set of spares or maybe able to recoup a bit of your cash outlay