Oh good lord. So the guy at car quest possibly sold me 12V glowplugs instead of 24? indeed. It never even occured to me that it would be an issue. I did tell him that it was a military blazer and he seemed to know what I was talking about, but I've had much worse experiences with parts house guys selling bad components, so it wouldn't surprise me.

Anyway, the new plugs didn't help, even with a jump, (still just cranks, no sign of firing) so I towed it to a mechanic to have them look at it.

I'm in a bit of a tight spot because I'm trying to figure out if I should bring it back to the dealer to exchange to a different 4x4. The problem is, the thing is in very good shape for its age (97,000 miles) and if I exchange it for something different, I will be getting a newer truck, but with WAAAY more miles on it, possibly leaving me in the same pickle (possible constant and costly repairs) as this beast but with a much less cool and capable vehicle.

Oh and if I do that, they'll probably be making their money twice on me, and once again on somebody else.

 

"The glow plugs and glow plug relay are 12-volt

components. Their 24-volt power supply is

reduced to 12-volt by the use of a resistor bank."

This is from that article that blazers.b.kewl posted. That sets my mind at ease that I did not waste my money on the plugs.

 

Sooo... in the interest of helpful informations, I have decided to post what my mechanic told me. Somebody (not me) screwed up the wiring. One battery was not getting charged at all, and there was 24v running to the glowplug relay, which is obviously not correct. I have no clue how in the world the truck got me around for three months with this situation going on. 24v should have, and probably eventually did, fried the glowplugs.

I ran across wiring schematics for the CUCV on this site: http://brochures.slosh.com/

Pretty cool, and I wish I could print out all 1024 pages of the military manual, but I think that might slightly **** off the old ladies at the library.