Glow Plug tip breakage

[Colinl]

Hi All.

Heard some nasty stories of glow plugs tips failing and becoming lodged in piston heads and valves etc anybody have first hand experience or wisdom with this.
Don't know how water tight this claim is but my motors on 300,000+km and original plugs so I rather be changing plugs instead of valves.

Just ordered a set of new bosch gpn-900 plugs.
Am I fear buying or being sensible?

[zukmeista]

For the price of the plugs vs the price of fixing shit if they did break off replacing them is a good idea just hope they don't snap when you try and undo them.

[tweake]

a lot of glow plugs won't last 300k anyway.
but there is some of the ceramic ones that are prone to breaking the tips off and should be changed often.
also i've seen glows that have been eaten buy the fuel flame, possibly due to worn injectors.

certainly change the glows at the first hint of poor starting. overworking the remaining glows makes them swell and can cause them to get stuck.

[y60 safari driver]

not to put more fear in you but some break the tips when you remove them as they swell at the tip and cant fit back out, only struck this myself on the 4jj1 isuzu motors

[Colinl]

This has certainly made take the job more seriously.
Undo with care and have a bore scope to check cylinders afterwards!

Cheers for confirming will get on with the job now

[Mr Revhead]

A damn good soaking overnight in a good penetrant (ie not crc) and if they are particularly tight, loosen, squirt, wait, loosen repeat.

[catalystracing]

I put my replacement ones back in with some high temp nickle based anti seize on the thread also.

[Colinl]

Well for the mileage the orignals have done they came out fine without a fight.
Two had tips broken off & thats what probably caused the last turbo to fail.
Last two has serious erosion signs.
God knows how the motor is still running but meh.

Motor starts first pop & runs sweet still.

[y60 safari driver]

sweet, always good to hear a success story