I have installed a remote glow plug on a Thunder Tiger 61 the ground is mounted on the engine, with one of the mount bolts. I have followed the directions given with the NI-Starter Remote Glow kit. It does not work. I have tested the engine by connecting my glow plug igniter directy to the engine and every thing works fine. The engine is inverted and hard to get the igniter on the glow, due to the nose wheel. I haven't had time to mess with it, but I plan on trying to mount the ground wire under the glow plug and see if that works. Is this a common problem with remote glows?

I have been using Hangar9 Remote Glow Plug Adaptors and never had a problem with them. I attach the ground on one of the engine mount bolts.

I just encountered this with an inverted Saito 100. The spring loaded glow plug connector developed slop in the connection. When inverted, the contact drops away from the glow plug tip, losing contact. Upright (with the plane inverted) the wire drops in and makes loose contact. I found this discouraging, the setup only had a dozen flights on it.

I cut the wire and stripped it, and soldered it to a 1/16th wire collar. I Dremel'd a groove in the collar for the wire. I drilled the one-sixteenth collar to one-eighth inch, slid it on over the end of the glow plug contact, and tightened the collar screw. So far, it works.

Good luck,
Dave Olson

Thanks, I will check and see if that is my problem.

Piddler

The caps which go onto the plug do not fit very well on certain brands of plugs, particularly OS #8.. I use McCoys because the head of the plug is longer and the cap slides on it much better. If you can push the cap onto the plug and turn it with no difficulty, it should be a good fit. If not, change plugs

I tried starting it again with no modifications and it started. It runs with the igniter on, but then when I take the igniter off, while idling, it quits. Do I need a hotter plug? I have a OS A3 on it.
It doesn't surge or anything, it just dies suddenly.

Thanks,

The Piddler

Remote glow gizmo's can sometimes be a royal pain in the rear end. I have one plane that kicks off nearly ever remote adapter I've tried. The main issue im my case is that the engine is large and soft mounted, so it shakes quite a bit. Assuming you don't have a broken wire or the like, my guess is your remote boost just isn't making complete contact everywhere or it is shorted. As others have indicated, the problem probably isn't with case ground. It is probably with the plug connector.

You can double check that everything is working by plugging in a spare plug to the remote boost, and then ground the plug by holding it against the engine case. It should glow.

As for remote designs, I've really only seen two plug connector designs that work well. Both use a spring clip to lock onto the channels on the glow plug post and use case for ground. The twist lock designs in my experience always seem to fail after X number of flights.

One design that works well is intended for helicopters, but would work on planes too. The basic design is shown here...

http://www4.mailordercentral.com/hel...?number=803470

It could be used on a plane with slight modification. It however does not work with most 4 stroke engines becase the clip is too large and will ground out on the head of most 4 strokes. I have used this remote setup on helis with out any issues. The spring clip is clearly visible.


Another design that works well is the Tettra seen here...

http://www.centralhobbies.com/glow/glowcap.html

It is a short kit, but the clip design is slick and works very well and is generally what I use. The connector only slides over the center post of the glow plug. There is a spring wire that locks into the channels of the center plug post. Once clicked on, it is very secure. To release, simply press on the spring wire to pull it out of the channel. You can't really see the clip in the picture, but it works similar to the heli design, but is much more compact.

I have also made remote connectors using the collar method described in Scar's post. It actually works very well and I reccomend it. I generally replace the standard collar set screw with a socket head screw for easier use. I've also found that grinding the end of the screw to a point does a better job as it will naturally guide itself into one of the plug post channels, making for a more secure fit. Just be sure that the collar only touches the center post, otherwise you will ground out the collar and you won't get any current to the glow element.

Cheers.

Thanks John,

I think the remote plug is working now, but I think I will go ahead and do the collar method anyway. It sounds like this method would solve any doubts of connection problems. Hopefully I can figure out why it quits when I take the glow igniter off. It could be just a matter of tuning it correctly.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread.

The Piddler

it is probly just running a little rich, thats what was wrong with my supertigre g-51

Ditto on Skater_719... If the engine quits with plug heat off, it is either too rich OR the plug is bad. Most likely too rich, but a plug with a coated element will also cause this symptom.

--- & one more ditto on too rich.

I'm using an O.S. A3. Should I be using a O.S. #8? What is the difference between the two?
Again it is TT .61 Pro.

The Piddler

I think I have figured everything out. I left the glow plug on for 2 tanks of fuel and it seems to be running just fine now. I was just a matter of breaking the engine in. I haven't done anything to the remote glow yet, but have purchased the parts to do the wire collar thing. I must have not had a good connection on the glow plug with the spring loaded connection. The TT .61 is on a Midwest Cherokee 40. I know it is a little overpowered, but I got a good deal on the engine and pitts muffler ($75.00). I had a O.S. 40 FSR on it, but it was 23 years old and seen its day.

The Piddler