Several years ago I went to change the glow plugs on my Peugeot 307 diesel. One of them seized in the bore and as I undid it, I was greeted with a length of resistance wire going off into the hole, as the tip sheared off. So after many attempts with self tapping screws welded to lengths of studding trying to get a grip on it, I gave up and simply replaced the body in the hole, hoping that one day it would come loose by itself while driving it. I knew I could drive it down into the cylinder but that was stupid, I wanted it to pop out so I could collect the piece , and replace it with a spare carried in the glove box at the time. Several years passed, and it did not come out. Until yesterday when my daughter who now drives that car was west of Cardiff on the M4. And it finally popped out. She was visiting lots of service stations to take a break from driving as she has not been driving for too long, so many warm up / cool down cycles in the same day .. Fortunately the AA man bodged a bolt into the hole where the electrical connection used to go and it held enough compression to drive the car another 30 miles.
Did it drive OK in the meantime? I've got one snapped in my Combo but I haven't had it removed yet (quotes of £320 & VAT for mobile removal service). Engine still turns over and starts OK, but I get the glow plug fault code occasionally.
The glow plug fault will be because the current is not quite high enough with only 3 working glowplugs (or maybe 2..) Many years ago with a 1990 Peugeot 306GRDT I found that having 2 working glow plugs was OK down to -5C then you needed a tow start, basically in the Lake District at a bunk house, ended up being rescued by the AA man one day, then arranging with the AA for a tow start the next day when we wanted to go home. Yes, it drove several thousand miles quite happily - I expect if you bunged up the top of the hole with an M10x1 bolt you would never have a problem. I left the bare metal top of the glowplug in place so there was a hole for it to blow through when it finally pushed the sheared off bit out.. We shall see if my daughter can fix it by herself with a Lidl socket set and some instructions over a videophone call, she has ordered some glowplugs from Halfords for delivery by Tuesday.
