glow plugs

I was topping up my oil today and spotted this as ive not had the car long.
my glow plugs are not connected and one is missing and has a bolt in it .

I have a yellow wire near the bulk head but its been cut off, is this the wire thats meant to go to the plugs?
Any one know what colour wire it should be? If i test it would it just have power for a short time when i turn the ignition on ?

I have not had any problem starting the car, even when the bad weather was here so have only just noticed it

any ideas on this one please.

Ta
Dave

Oh and Will i be losing any power or mpg because of this??

How about you tell us exactly what engine is involved ... PLEASE!

CharlesY

If the car is starting OK I wouldn't worry about it. The glow plugs are only used to aid starting, the lack of them wont effect power or mpg

CharlesY said:

How about you tell us exactly what engine is involved ... PLEASE!

CharlesY

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opps i forgot about that :doh: lol, its a disco 300 tdi

Richard Martin said:

If the car is starting OK I wouldn't worry about it. The glow plugs are only used to aid starting, the lack of them wont effect power or mpg

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yep, the car starts fine, its a little smokey :5bsifone: on start up but it soon clears up .

Cheers

Crikey did tha not open t'bonnet before you bought it?????

dave_wales said:

I
I have a yellow wire near the bulk head but its been cut off, is this the wire thats meant to go to the plugs?
Any one know what colour wire it should be?

Dave

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My 300 will start without glow plugs, and the wire is yellow..

lerk said:

Crikey did tha not open t'bonnet before you bought it?????

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Yes i did, but as it had no trouble starting form cold i never looked at the glow plugs. i wired them up this morning before i started it and see how it goes but it started up fine as it always has before

battenberg said:

My 300 will start without glow plugs, and the wire is yellow..

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Cheers mate, i've wired it up now just to see if it makes much difference

dave_wales said:

Cheers mate, i've wired it up now just to see if it makes much difference

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I think it is a good idea to have the plugs wired up and working.

If nothing else you can be that bit more sure of a start in really cold conditions, and you can know that there will be less fuel pollution into the engine oil as the engine will fire up quicker and cleaner.

If you need to find out how much effect glow plugs can have, try starting a 2.5NA on a cold morning with no glow!

Basically "NO GLOW equals NO GO!" in some engines, while others are good starters even when freezing cold. The fact remains, all these engines will start faster and cleaner using a good glow.

CharlesY