Hi guys,

 

This evening I changed my glowplugs to cure a bit of a rough starting issue on cold starts on cold mornings.  Pleased to say its cold again this evening and problem solved

 

In looking at the old glowplugs however, a bit of a strange wear pattern is apparent.  It looks like you can see where the injected fuel is spraying onto the glowplug tip.

 

My question is...is this normal?  Or is it a sign of injectors that are possibly showing some wear on the nozzles and hence the spray pattern changing a bit?

 

Glowplugs (for all I know) have been in the car from the start, quite heavy corrosion on the outside, so they have certainly been there a while, but don't know how long.  Car is nearly at 100k miles just now.

 

Thanks,

Jac

Look alright to me. Just looks like marks from the heat of the plugs

I know bugger all about diesel combustion chambers, but I'm thinking that it would make sense for incoming diesel to hit the glowplug during cold-start, wouldn't it? Everything else it hits is going to be stone cold and tend to condense the 'mist' into incombustible liquid pools, other than the tip of the plug which should start a fire?

Glad to hear it looks normal!  Was just surprised as to how rough the tips looked...but that said...after 100k of having diesel sprayed onto them at hundreds of bar, I suppose they do take a bit of a beating!

 

But good point Wino, I hadn't quite thought it through!  New plugs in and cold starts are now much better with no unburnt diesel coming out the pipe immediately after a start either