This is my first post to hopefully help anyone thats been in the same situation as myself with a poor starting Connect!.
I bought my van in the summer (90HP TDCi 05 plate LWB 110K miles) - no issues at all with starting, been very happy with it so far.
Started to notice a problem about 2 weeks ago when the temp dropped to freezing levels each night. Cold starts took lots of cranking followed by a reluctant start with a cloud of smoke.
This has got steadily worse as the night-time temps have dropped further to about -9 last night.
I changed glow plugs (Beru) about 4 days ago as it seemed sensible that they should be the problem - made no difference.....
Today I've looked at it again with a fresh pair of eyes and the problem has become obvious!.
The wire from no.4 glowplug runs to the plastic dipstick mounting bracket. On this is mounted a terminal post where the van wiring loom connects to the glow plug harness (the red link wires).
Here lies the problem - there was no wire from the vehicle to the terminal post!. So the glowplugs (NGK new ones!) are connected together correctly but not connected to any power source.
I eventually found the guilty wire partially into the fan pack!. Managed to retrieve it and crimped on a new eyelet connector - reattached to terminal block - van starts like a dream!.
I had wrongly assumed that as the glow plug lamp was functioning correctly then the system must be working - WRONG!.
The glow plug lamp appears to be ECU driven to give the driver the time delay required for the glow plugs (depending on temperature) before cranking the engine,
(i'm assuming coolant or air temp sensors and an ECU look-up table for lamp time). There does not appear to be any feedback / diagnostics on this system at all.
I had assumed it was more sophisticated than it is !.
One last warning - soak the intercooler fixing bolts / nuts with WD40 for several days before taking the cooler off - all my bolts snapped off.
Quality Ford products........
worried!
