Shine Little Glow Plug, Glimmer, Glimmer

It's been a while since I've blogged, but I suppose it's been a while since I've had anything to post about. It took longer than expected to get the parts in from Germany, so after a full month with no Merzola, I finally got it back.
I picked it up on Friday afternoon. It had a little trouble starting, but I wrote that off to not being driven for so long. The next morning, I tried to start it and nothing. It turned over, but wouldn't crank. I slept on it and had a thought. It's turning over, and I can smell diesel in the exhaust so maybe it's the glow plugs.
For you folks who aren't familiar with diesel engines, glow plugs look like spark plugs, but instead of creating a spark to ignite fuel/air mixture (like in a gas engine), glow plugs get super hot and heat up the combustion chamber to assist with cold starts. The diesel engine compresses air, heating up the chamber, then fuel is injected and combustion occurs. When it's cold (like at startup), it needs a little help heating up and that's where the glow plugs come in. Spark plugs spark repeatedly, but glow plugs are only used at startup. Make sense? Well, it did to me. It cranked fine when it was warm, but the next morning, it wouldn't. So I decided to replace the glow plugs myself.
I called the local parts stores but no one had them on hand. Luckily, they could order them and have them by 8am the next day. So I spent a few hours taking out glow plugs. It would normally be an easy task, but they are not easy to get to. In fact, I could only get to 3 of the 5. So I replaced those 3 and took a chance. If the bad glow plugs just happened to be the ones I replaced, then it would work. If not, I'd have to figure out how to get Merzola back to the shop and let them do it.
After reconnecting the battery cables, I gave it a crank...and to my surprise, it fired right up. Wow, that was lucky. My mechanical genius never ceases to amaze me (ok, so I'm easily amazed).
Now, after a month apart, Merzola and I have reunited and I can once again smell the sweet burn of veggie oil. Now back to my sushi lady...

Factoid of the Blog (courtesy of HowStuffWorks.com):
Compression
When working on his calculations, Rudolf Diesel theorized that higher compression leads to higher efficiency and more power. This happens because when the piston squeezes air with the cylinder, the air becomes concentrated. Diesel fuel has a high energy content, so the likelihood of diesel reacting with the concentrated air is greater. Another way to think of it is when air molecules are packed so close together, fuel has a better chance of reacting with as many oxygen molecules as possible. Rudolf turned out to be right -- a gasoline engine compresses at a ratio of 8:1 to 12:1, while a diesel engine compresses at a ratio of 14:1 to as high as 25:1.