Hello,

My Ford Fiesta 1.4 TDCi had an engine malfunction that required a new sensor. I changed the sensor and then the error code indicated a glow plug problem. I removed three of the glow plugs. The first one is covered in either oil or diesel (shown below), the second appeared to be fine, and the third broke off and left its element inside the engine block. There also appears to be oil or diesel that has leaked on the engine block around the injector area of the oily glow plug.

Could anybody suggest to me what the problem could be?

 

The problem now is that you have a glow plug tip stuck in one of the cylinders...  

The oil leak is pretty irrelevant compared to that, but if you show us a picture of the leak we might be able to determine where it's coming from.  

the broken one - if you leave the threaded part out of the hole, the broken part might come out like a bullet whilst engine running - would be pretty dangerous if it did that.

if you screw the threaded part back in so that it can't shoot out, could the broken tip over time move the other way into the cylinder which I would imagine could cause some major internal damage. I don't know if that has ever happened.

It's a major problem to sort out this broken one.

Well chaps, I had two ideas. If the problem was solely with the glow plugs, then I would change them and I would use an extractor tool to get the glow tip out (but that’s about £40, so I’d prefer to avoid this method). However, if the oil problem required removing the injectors, then I thought I could simply knock the tip through into the top of the cylinder and extract it through the injector hole with a magnet.

I’ll get some photos of the oil/diesel spill asap! Thanks for your input so far guys

Ok, I asked my Mrs to take some pics of the fluid on the engine (looks like oil but could be diesel I suppose). She took some dreadful pics, as to be expected, but I’ll get some more tomorrow. Any ideas guys?

 

 

Ok, I now have some better photographs of the oil or diesel on the engine (the photos are upside down for some reason). Does anybody have an idea where this could be coming from?

Looks like its just oil mist from a loose/split boost pipe or the air doser valve (butterfly valve) on the rear left hand side, and also the same from the oil breather pipe on the front right.  

Pretty common and not something most people would bother fixing.  You could try a used air doser but they all seem to leak on the 1.4 TDCi/HDi.

 

Ah OK, thanks Tom! Do you think it looks like there is oil or diesel on that first glow plug picture I showed?

15 minutes ago, BMid said:

Ah OK, thanks Tom! Do you think it looks like there is oil or diesel on that first glow plug picture I showed?

Hard to tell tbh, I'd say it's oil from the colour.  But of course diesel can pick up dirt and carbon from the top of the engine and look dirty as well.

If it was mine, I'd get all the plugs replaced and then give the engine a good clean with degreaser so you can see what's leaking from where.