Have I frazzled my Eberspacher?

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chuzzlewit

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It stopped working. After switch-on the fuel pump would pulse and the heater would fire up for about 20 seconds with warm exhaust smoke then go cold. Voltage at glow plug (which looked clean when I extracted it)was only 8.5V.Tracing and cleaning all connections between battery and plug looked a nightmare. So I lead a heavy 6AWG fused double cable from battery to plug with a relay (switched on by voltage from original leads to glow plug) in the positive lead.
Now when I switch on the fan blows. There is no longer a pulse in the fuel line. The voltage at the fuel pump(which isn't pulsing) is a steady 4.5V. No voltage comes from the wires that originally powered the glow plug: so the relay isn't activated. This state of affairs continues indefinitely.
Any advice gratefully accepted.
 
These eberspacs are complex stand alone units. They do all sorts of clever stuff to stop themselves burning out, or CO2 posoning you if there are faults/cracks in the body etc.

My eberspac stopped working when we got the diesal fuel 'bug'. The algae grows at the bottom of the tank at the border between collected stagnant water and the fuel. When the algae turns fuel to gel and this got sucked into the very thin fuel line for the heater it blocked. The spac would fire up and run for a short while, blow hot smoke out the exhaust, self diagnose a problem and shut down.

I used marine 16 fuel treatment to good effect.

This may be your problem to. Don't tamper with the (very clever) electronics inside the unit would be my advice.

If there is a fault (like a crack in the body of the unti leaking potentially lethal CO2 it detects the presuure drop and) closes the unit down.

Hope this helps!
 
Find the fuel pump and the fuel filter. It's really easy to remove the fuel filter for inspection - 2 spanners, going in opposite directions, then a knife to prise out the small filter.

Check it's not black and diesel bug filled. If it is, clean or preferably change it for another, as well as sorting out the reason why you have fuel bug.

Once you get clean fuel, as well as sufficient amps, you will probably find it works a whole load better!
 
As part of the startup... in between the time the fan starts to spin and the glow plug being energised... the control unit checks resistance of the glow plug, the flame sensor, the temperature sensor and the safety thermal sensor. If any of these are out of spec then the glow plug will not be energised and the fan will then slow down and stop.

Perhaps check the resistance of the glow plug (it should be .6 ohm) and then check the resistance of the relay energising coil - Perhaps the control unit is not seeing the correct resistance (i.e. relay coil resistance not same as glow plug resistance) although I don't know how accurate it needs to be.

Back to the initial firing up for about 20 seconds and then shutting down.. it does sound like the burn has not fully ignited - but then that could be that the glow was not sufficient - or that the burn chamber is coked up.... With regards to checking the original 8.5 volt.. it looks like there are a lot of cables - but not many are power.. and it's likely to be a loose connector.
 
The pump on the D3LC will not start on switch on but only after the ecu has done its other checks, your heater now sounds to be 'failing' before it even reaches the pumping stage. I assume that you have the manual, follow it for some simple resistance checks on the glow plug, flame sensor and temp sensor.
Check your relay is working. Is it the finned type or just a small black box?
Forget fuel quality and filters at this stage they are not relevant to your problem!
Good luck!!
 
chuzzlewit said:
It stopped working. After switch-on the fuel pump would pulse and the heater would fire up for about 20 seconds with warm exhaust smoke then go cold. Voltage at glow plug (which looked clean when I extracted it)was only 8.5V.Tracing and cleaning all connections between battery and plug looked a nightmare. So I lead a heavy 6AWG fused double cable from battery to plug with a relay (switched on by voltage from original leads to glow plug) in the positive lead.
Now when I switch on the fan blows. There is no longer a pulse in the fuel line. The voltage at the fuel pump(which isn't pulsing) is a steady 4.5V. No voltage comes from the wires that originally powered the glow plug: so the relay isn't activated. This state of affairs continues indefinitely.
Any advice gratefully accepted.
Click to expand...
As I understand it, you put 12v direct to the plug? (in essence) I think that you may have sha gged it ( a technical term we use in eber fault finding!) If I remember correctly they dont put 12v direct to the plug, it is less than that. If it is open circuit then the logic will halt the start up procedure
Stu
 
skipper_stu said:
As I understand it, you put 12v direct to the plug? (in essence) I think that you may have sha gged it ( a technical term we use in eber fault finding!) If I remember correctly they dont put 12v direct to the plug, it is less than that. If it is open circuit then the logic will halt the start up procedure
Stu
Click to expand...

Indeed, Eber glowpins are 8v, so I think you could be right..
 
Dont worry about the ecu yet! Get the thing to the state that it was in before you ( possibly) fried the glow plug. Skipper Stu is right to suggest that the glow plug may not need 12 volts. Check that first. If we can get it to the state it was in before we can look for solutions.
At that stage we may have to look at flame sensor, temp sensor, fuel supply, etc.
If your heater has been well used then it may need a clean out for which you should invest now in a new gauze screen.
 
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