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Burning up glow plugs

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Adam Smith

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My buddy has a 4908 Tmaxx. He has run about a gallon of fuel thru it and is very responsible when it comes to after run maint.(piston bdc, afterrun oil, clean air filter etc) anyway. He has been burning up glow plugs in less than a tank of fuel. The car is set a bit to the rich side, not overly rich imo, but just a little smoke under full acceleration. He has been told that running it too lean is the cause but its not lean. He checked the exhaust for restricions and even pulled the cooling head off to check for debris in the motor(he said everything looked ok but he had slight carbon buildup on the piston). He took the motor back to original factory settings and is tuning for just the weather and is still burning them up. He checked his EZ start wand and its A OK. He said the truck jrun great, then just dies after it gets warmed up and won't start, so he pulls the plug, hooks it to the blue wire and grounds it on the head and gets nothing. I am going to try to help him out this weekend with it but not sure where to begin, any ideas??
 
Last edited:
Adam Smith said:
My buddy has a 4908 Tmaxx. He has run about a gallon of fuel thru it and is very responsible when it comes to after run maint.(piston bdc, afterrun oil, clean air filter etc) anyway. He has been burning up glow plugs in less than a tank of fuel. The car is set a bit to the rich side, not overly rich imo, but just a little smoke under full acceleration. He has been told that running it too lean is the cause but its not lean. He checked the exhaust for restricions and even pulled the cooling head off to check for debris in the motor(he said everything looked ok but he had slight carbon buildup on the piston). He took the motor back to original factory settings and is tuning for just the weather and is still burning them up. He checked his EZ start wand and its A OK. He said the truck jrun great, then just dies after it gets warmed up and won't start, so he pulls the plug, hooks it to the blue wire and grounds it on the head and gets nothing. I am going to try to help him out this weekend with it but not sure where to begin, any ideas??
Click to expand...


i got a trx .15 that was doing the same exact thing, i replaced 2 or 3 plugs in it, and remembered all the problems i had with the old .15s i had. so i bought a os.18tm from local hobby store, just haven't finished everything yet, it's mounted and has a pipe on it, but i need to put the mount that holds the pipe on and change the throttle linkages
 
Adam Smith said:
He has been burning up glow plugs in less than a tank of fuel.
Click to expand...

Couple of questions...
How many has he burnt up?
How does he know they are burnt?
I would look at the glow ignitor.. maybe it is weak.. and a new plug is easy to light up.
Also, I would consider changing to a different plug company.
I didn't have good luck with the McCoy plugs, so I switched to o.s. #8... I would never get a different plug. Runs like a champ.. never had any issues.
Maybe the plugs he is using are too cold or too hot.
 
TacRacing said:
Couple of questions...
How many has he burnt up?
How does he know they are burnt?
I would look at the glow ignitor.. maybe it is weak.. and a new plug is easy to light up.
Also, I would consider changing to a different plug company.
I didn't have good luck with the McCoy plugs, so I switched to o.s. #8... I would never get a different plug. Runs like a champ.. never had any issues.
Maybe the plugs he is using are too cold or too hot.
Click to expand...

He bought 4 new ones the 3535x or whatever the Traxxas ones are for the 3.3. He says they are burnt up because they won't ignite, immeadiately after it dies. I'll pass that info to him. He put a meter on the ignitor and said it was reading correctly. It does seem odd. He has never had any problems mechanically with the truck before, he hasn't changed fuel or anything either. He had a bad glow plug before, I think that is when this issue started, but he didn't realize it until he put in NEW plugs and started having problems. Sending him this thread in a link, maybe he will chime in.
 
My savage 25 does the same thing, I've burned up at least 6. I am running a medium temp O'donnell.21-.50. just had it tuned @local hobby shop. AND STILL BURNING PLUGS.. Any help would be appreciated
 
I'm having the same problem with my 2.5.... Gone through 3 or 4 in about half a gallon. Truck is tuned good, its very agrivating. Next time I'm back at the hobby shop I'm buying 10 so I can finish off the gallon...
 
My buddy is having the same problem, he has went thru 5 glow plugs in just 3 days....he is using the Traxxas glow plug. I think his a touch on the lean side...the glow plugs is ash white when he takes it out. I use a MC58 in my os.21 and have had no issues with it
 
He is only runnning the Traxxas until its gone, I may tell him to switch now. Thanks for the advice. Our local hobby mechanic recommended the Sidewinder to me, it works great. No after run oil, pull the plug, put the piston at bdc and clean the filter, very easy.
 
Ok this is interesting. He gets thru about 3/4 of a tank of fuel and it will die,then he tries to restart and nothing. Pulls ths plug, and where it coils up inside its broken!! He tested it and it has a small amount of continuity too(not good). If he takes and presses the coil down a bit where its broke, the light on the EZ start lights right up as if the plug is fine. What on earth would cause plug after plug to burn up? He said the plugs come out looking like brand new with no evidence of a lean/rich condition and the truck runs great for about 3/4 of a tank. He has the low speed and high speed jets properly adjusted and the truck is running about 220-230 at temp. The truck has had one gallon of the traxxas fuel run thru it and has never had any issues until now. He is about 1/4 way thru thr 2nd gallon and I offered to give him some of my Sidewinder fuel just to try, but I can't think that that is the problem. Any ideas??? He is about ready to give up.
 

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