Glow Plug Circuit and Potential Fire!

[Lisa&Jon]

Our Bongo wouldn't start this week so went through the diagnostics using the excellent factsheet and found the actual problem was down to the fuse wire coming straight off the positive connector on the battery. Once we worked out that the wire had blown and therefore not feeding the glow plug relay we then worked out what had caused it to blow in the first place. It appears that the arm coming off the live feed in the engine compartment that feeds the glow plugs was touching a metal rod and therefore short circuiting the feed. I'm no mechanic so excuse the lack of terminology here but the end result was some nice flames and a lot of smoke. We banged this arm down away from the rod and that seems to have cured the issue.

So...a couple of questions, has anyone seen this before? Is it a common occurrence? Also, We've replaced the glow plug fuse wire from the battery to the relay circuit but would really prefer to replace it with a normal type fuse set up. Does anyone know what the ampage should be on this circuit?

Cheers


Jon

[wonkanoby]

did you do glow plugs

as there are 2 kinds long and short...the most common

if you put in short on a motor built for long you get a short like you describe

[Lisa&Jon]

Nope, didn't do the glow plugs. I've not pulled them out to check but thanks for the heads up.