Where are you buying your glow plugs? Who makes them?
i see post after post after post with this same issue, you guys really need to look up in the archives past issues because this one comes up every month....now, this starting system is not difficult, but you MUST and I repeat MUST start with known good parts. I for one use the Kascar non-swell glow plugs, while they are expensive, I have never had an issue after numerous trucks. The EESS box, I always use KDS yellow label with matching yellow banded Temp sender unit...this is not a glow plug controller as some folks call it, the TSU replaced the GPC as the GPC was a weak point and failed often.
the TSU just sends a signal based on engine temp that say either turn on the glow plugs for 6-8 seconds or don't, quite simple. NOW, if your EESS is a GREEN Label, NO TSU is Required, the glow plugs cycle every time at startup regardless of engine temp, I don't see many green label box but I have a few in my stock I use for trouble shooting.
today I am seeing alot of the new S3 EESS boxes on eBay, these are the latest generation of box, I now have all my trucks running this box and they work quite nicely, no more glow plug afterglow where the gen bounces up and down for 2 mins after cold start, you can tell this box by the extra maint port on the front for Diag.equipment to plug into. I have several of these new boxes, they are either Nartron or KDS, each come with there own TSU but I have found any of the KDS or Narton TSUs work, they are backward compatible, again, TSU, Not GPC glow plug controller.
there is the SSI box, I would never use one of these, never had any luck, also, make sure you don't have one of the early versions where the glow plug connector plugs direct into this box, so you would 3 plugs on this box, 2 for the body wiring harness and one for the separate glow plug harness...theses boxes are a no no, they had a habit of actully starting the truck on its own, several motor pools had hmmwv's burn to the ground.
So now you have a good box, good glow plugs, now go clean off every ground on the truck....dash, gen, all the lights, starter, engine, all the gauges etc...now make up a grounding harness, you can buy them from Kascar or make your own.
think of an octopus, where the head of the octopus is the start point, in this case the engine, on the left rear cylinder is the ground termination, starting from there, run a wire to each of theses locations:
1. Generator ground
2. One of the bolts that mounts the EESS box
3.to the stud on the firewall that feeds all the instrument gauges, you should have cleaned this ground so you know where it is. You have to take the inst cluster out to get to it.the stud passes through to the engine area near the fuel filter, one of the body harness grounds terminates there.
4. The starter ground
All 4 of these connections can be terminated into on large 2/0 solderless connector that has a 3/8 lug to bolt up to the engine head. Now everything you need to run is grounded.
I have had trucks that would do all of the issues you guys post about fixed with just this harness, I have eaten my fair share of boxes as well, bad boxes will eat glow plugs, but the Kascar plugs have a thermo limiter like the civ AC 60 G glop lug, you can't burn them up, Wellman is the Mfg I see that the goverment gets there hmmwv glows from, every DRMO engine I have ever received be it 6.2, 6.5 or Turbo diesel all have the Wellman 24v GP's installed.
hope this helps.