Glow plug relay, stuck on????

[maxfax]

I think I made a mistake yesterday, I washed the Rabbit (yes with soap and a sponge!)

Fired it up, pulled it in the yard, did the deed, left it sit for about 8 hours...   Jump in to get it outta the yard, the battery was dead..  Unhooked the battery, threw the charger on and let it sit till morning..     Next morning checked for drains, nothing there, hooked the battery up, gp light on and off as normal, cranked the crap out of it but no start..    Checked for power to teh fuel solenoid and glow plugs..   Yup both good..    Cranked some more and got the little #@&* started..   Drove to Burger Thing shut it off..  Sat for a half hour and it started fine..  Shrugged it off and figured I;d deal with it later... It's later..   Battery held it's charge but still no start..   Pulled the bus bar and all 4 GPs are DOA... 

I'm thinking at this point that maybe the GP relay just randomly stuck on..   All the wiring on the system checks out okay..  Didn't find any compromized wires that may have shorted...  At the moment I have 4 used GPs from random parts engines, and a relay from one of the various carcuses..  Seems to be working at the moment so I have some new GPs and a Relay coming..  Did I miss anything aside from washing the car and filling the fuel tanks on the same day??

[Baron VonZeppelin]

It went nuts when you added new elements into its environment.
Soap mixed with water.

If you susbstituted a $5-$6 parts store 40-50 amp auto reset circuit breaker in place of the metal strip/fuse for the Gplugs - it would save the Gplugs whenever something like that happens again.

But the battery would still eventually go dead.

Its happened to me 4 times in past 18 months by leaving my auxillary Gplug switch ON, overnight. But the battery and Gplugs have bounced back each time. I have to think the circuit breaker cycling is what saved them from cooking.

I've read that the new Bosch Duraterm Gplugs have a feature like that built into them.

[maxfax]

I woudl guess that the little fuse strip would have burned out before the glow plugs would..  That is if I woudl have gotten around to replacing that instead of just putting both wires under the same screw..  Yes I have a fuse back in there now!! 

I really prefer having the automatic glow plugs so that I don;t have to give a turtorial if someone else has to drive my car, however I would lke to do some revamping of the system... For starters a GP light that only comes on wqhen teh GPs are on..   And I really like the idea of one of those circuit breakers...  That beats stadning in the cold juming the fuse, or burned out GPs...


And yes the Duratherms do have a sort of built in thermostat to keep them from burning up... I have a set of those on the way.. 

[Baron VonZeppelin]

My 89 still has/uses the auto Gplug system.
The seperate manual Gplug system is what i put in to band-aid my hot restart problem.
I've only forgotten to turn it back off 4 times so far. lol

Know exactly what you mean about not having to tutor a new driver on a full manual system. Plus i would probly have left it on 50 times by now if had to rely on it for everything.

Maybe right about the fuse strip, idunno.
Azzumed you had it in place. Bad Max ! Bad bad  

I looked at a real nice MB 300 TD SDL that was highly maintained.
Was shocked his mechanic had put a jumper wire in place of the Gplug fuse strip !!

Where did you source your Duraterms ?
Found them nowhere for our old tin cans, everybody still trying to push the old stylers off the shelves first i guess.
Mine are coming from Canada, with some other stuffs.

[Rabbit TD]

Does your fuse box ever get wet when it rains or when you wash the car, if it doesn't it's probably one of the only Rabbits around that doesn't and it screws up relays constantly.

[maxfax]

I bought new fuse strips about a year ago to fix this..    Just never got around to putting one in..   For sure I won;t be putting that off again...

I sourced the duratherms through Mobile autoparts..    They no longer have their web store as it was just a bit much for them to keep up with..   They do still ahve their ebay store though..  I usually just email them with what I need...

Does your fuse box ever get wet when it rains or when you wash the car, if it doesn't it's probably one of the only Rabbits around that doesn't and it screws up relays constantly.

The hatch leaks like a mesh umbrella (I'll get to that soon!), but when I got this car I went leak Nazi on the front half.. All rust fixed and sealed, new windhsield and gasket. May have just been the humidity from the water that leaked in through the hatch.. I guess it is 28 year old relay too... Seems to be doing fine now..  I suspect I may have had a bad GP to begin with..  It starts much better now.. This is my last set of used GPs I had laying around so this poor thing is finally getting some new ones, and a fast glow relay too!!!

[maxfax]

Well.... The little @#*&@# did it again...  But this time I had a fuse to burn off before the GP's got toasted.. It did start raining lightly this morning, however not last night which was the last time I drove it..  It either stayed on after I started it, or it kicked on by itself durning the night.. Granted it was a used relay that was problably 20 some years old as well but it seems odd that 2 would fail the same way.. Guess it's time to chase wires again..   And the GP light is getting wired to only light when there is power at the GPs...