Glow Plug Maintenance

[cage]

I heard a scary story on Click and Clack the other week where a guy called in saying that he had the glow plugs changed on his Dodge Cummins engine and one broke dropping pieces into the engine. Click and Clack said that is common and it is best to loosen and retighten your glow plugs every so often to keep this from happening. Is this true? They also said that this is becomming more and more a problem for gas engine spark plugs since everyone has 100,000 mile spark plug change intervals now. If this is the case shouldn't we also loosen and retighten our fuel injectors to guard against this?

 

[mickey]

I think the more you mess with them, the more likely they are to break! If you ever do need to replace a glow plug or injector, be sure to use a suitable anti-seize compound on the threads. I'm sure VW did so when they built the car. The guy with the Cummins problem was probably using a cheap socket, or had the tool on a weird angle or something.

-mickey

 

[N Dennis]

Last I heard, the Cummins engine does not use glow plugs. Have they changed their design?

 

[Dieselworld]

Cummins engines do not use glow plugs! They have a electric grid in the manifold that heat the incoming air to aid start-up. Glow plugs can't or spark plugs can't fall into an engine. If they get loose they might vibrate out but not in. Duh

 

[cage]

The truck had glow plugs or the guy would not have called with the problem. Maybe it wasn't a cummins but it was a dodge so I assumed. anyway the glow plugs were stuck and broke causing pieces of the glow plug to fall into the engine. The guy was concerned because one of the valves was ticking because of it. Click and Clack said this was rather common and that a piece of the glow plug was probably stuck on the valve or seat and other than taking the head off there was nothing that he could do. They then said that you should loosen and retighten glow plugs as well as spark plugs to guard against stripping and or breaking. I am simply asking if anyone has done this or what you think of this practice.

 

[mickey]

I think some of the early Cummins motors used glow plugs. The grid-heater method came along about the same time as the newer, goofy looking Dodge trucks. But I would still stick to the old adage: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

-mickey