Freelander 2 Glow Plugs are pretty notorious for failing however you don’t spot the problem until a cold snap with temperatures below 0 degrees when your car wont start. There are a number of posts on Freel2 discussing poor cold starting and mentioning that you can do a double stage start by keeping your foot off the pedal (clutch for a Manual or brake on the Auto),and just pressing the start button to set the ‘ignition’; waiting 6 – 10 seconds and then starting with your foot on the pedal and another press off the start button.
This probably indicates you already have 1 or more plugs failed.

My experience is from changing an engine in my 2010 GS. My replacement ‘nearly new’ engine when first fitted started with hesitation at temperature about 0 degrees, two days later with -2 / -4 degrees it refused to start. ALL the glow plugs had failed. My original engine had 34K on the clock and had only 3 good Glow Plugs.

The Forum already has a fully detailed description with photos of Glow Plugs change and its a ‘must to read’ first and may be the best way for an amateur inexperienced mechanic (Home > Maintenance & Modifications > My Glowplug Replacement), however if you have experience and can make the odd tool then I have an easier way which involves only minor dismantling.

Parts
1/.Set of new Glow Plugs, (I note that there are at least two different spanner sizes, M8 and M10, hence below I make two special sockets before starting).
2/.A method of priming the diesel filter, (see my notes later).
3/. Suitable Steel tube for long reach socket.(Dia 14 – 16mm 2 pieces about 40mm long each).
4/. Suitable steel strip for the electrical Plug Cap removal
4/.Note that you don’t need any other gaskets as you are not dismantling any joints.

Tools
Slim mirror, I use an old car interior mirror
Head torch
¼ drive socket set with long and short extensions and a small dedicated ¼ drive ratchet wrench, (lots of socket sets use a ¾ wrench with ¼ adaptor – they are physically far too big for this job.
Buy spare ¼ drive 8mm and 10mm sockets that you will cut up to make special sockets
Your normal tool box tools.
Access to Stick or MIG welder

Home made tools.
You need a long reach ¼ drive socket to go over the Glow Plugs, on a Sunday morning only ¾ drive were available and they are just too big. (Note - Ebay does list ¼ drive long reach sockets and tubular box spanners which might do the job.)
From my scrap box found and cut two lengths of steel tube then sliced the ‘new’ sockets in half (using a 2mm cutting disc),and tack welded the cut parts on to the tube to make the two long reach sockets. My tubing was 16mm dia and I had to grind the welds down, 15mm would be better, anything bigger that 16 might not fit. Stuff rag inside to pack out the socket as a soft end stop so it only just fits the hexagons of your new Glow plugs. The overall length of my special sockets was 50mm.

THE JOB
I am going to keep this abbreviated because you will have read the other post and I assume that you are experienced.
1/. Remove the air filter box and its organ pipe.
2/.Remove the engine cover.
3/.Remove the Diesel Filter and its black yolk.
4/.Lay and stuff into place a long rag across the back of the alternator and across the starter motor to catch any bolts as you drop them (I did!).
5/. Only now remove the aluminium bracket off the Engine block, (4 x 13mm bolts).
NUMBER 4 GLOWPLUG
6/. Start with the Glow Plug by the timing belt which actually is number 4!
7/. Pull off the plug cap, use the homemade socket (first observing if it is M8 or M10), slacken the Glow Plug and remove, I unscrewed mine by hand. Refit new Glow Plug SCREW BY HAND FIRST a long way in before reaching for the ¼ drive and put the cap back on.
Do not try and rescrew back in initially using the ¼ drive and wrench, if you were to miss and cross thread you might have an expensive bill!

That was the easy one so now you know the basics. You will have noticed the inclination angle of the plug to the cylinder head, the others follow the same angle.
NUMBER 3 GLOWPLUG
8/. Now use the headtorch and mirror and study no 3 Glow before making a start.
9/. I made a Plug Head pulling tool from a 10mm wide x 2mm thick strip of steel with the end bent over 90 degrees, file a half round to the bent end and thin down with the grinder so it fits between the plastic plug cap and the Glow Plug.
10/. Pull the cap off, use the long reach special socket with a short extension and remove and change the Glow plug as above taking care to hand screw the first section. You MUST use the mirror to ensure that you get the socket on ’in linear alignment’ to the Glow Plug.
11/. Refit the Diesel Filter.
NUMBER 2 GLOWPLUG, (this one will tax your dexterity and patience!)
12/. Unclip the Swirl Flaps solenoid wiring plug and the other plug to the Throttle and tuck the wires below.
13/. Undo the Oil Filler tube side bolts M8
14/. Undo the Swirl Flaps Vacuum solenoid bolts M8, unclip its filter off the Oil Filer Tube, unclip its feed from the Vacuum pump. Carefully ease out the pipes from around the Oil Filler pipe and tuck the Vacuum Solenoid just enough downwards out of the way.
15/. Take off the two M10 nuts off the Glow Plug Harness connector bracket and ease it forwards and to the left.
16/. Use the mirror and torch to find the Glow plug so you know exactly where it is.
17/. Follow procedure 10 as above, noting this one is a brain teaser and you will need patience!
18/.Refit the Harness bracket.
NUMBER 1 GLOWPLUG
18/. This is the easiest of the lot; just follow procedure 10.
19/. Refit the Swirl Solenoid unit and the Oil Filler screws.

FINISHING OFF
20/. Bleed the Diesel, I have a low cost way of doing this, its in the thread Home > Maintenance & Modifications > Changing the diesel filter

CONCLUSION
If you are a capable home mechanic the advantages of this method are:-
A/. No dismantling of the injection system except the Diesel Filter.
B/. No removal of the EGR pipe, (those back hex socket bolts are not the easiest to reach!).
C/. No removal of the throttle body
D/. No removal of the Inlet Manifold so no gaskets to buy.

I would stress that you need dextrous hands, nimble fingers and the ability to feel your way to screw the Glow Plugs in by hand for most of their length. 2010GS Auto ex Celeb, Santorini Black, 2011 facelift , spoiler, spats, mudflaps, LED footwell lamps, Witter detach,
Other cars:-
1958 & 1959 Austin J40 Pedal Cars under restoration (I make many J40 parts)
If you have an Austin J40 or Pathfinder Pedal Car looking for a new home pls PM me.
2009 Meriva

Thank you very much for the detailed How-To !

There is a simple way to measure how many glow plugs are alive. Just take away the glow relay and look for relay out pin. Connect an ammeter negative lead to the connector where relay output pin goes (at the relay socket and relay removed) and the ammeter positive lead to battery positive terminal. Make only a short connection for get the ampere reading. Every alive glow plug takes certain amount of current and the total current is the sum of alive plugs. Of course the ammeter needs to be heavy enough. Alternatively you can use a piece of wire and DC clamp ammeter. When the relay is removed the glow plugs are isolated from rest of the car electronics.

It's not that straightforward on the FL2
I am 99% sure of my facts that the glows are individually wired to a four contact relay that is hidden centrally behind the supplementary steel bulkhead. I was wondering about taking the plastic scuttle panel off; finding the four wires and adding a set of test wires ending in a connector close to the battery. In October / November you could use a link wire to the batt positive. If it sparks when the wire is brushed to the positive then the glow is alive; if it doesn't spark it's dead. I'm sure that some wag will say that This test should only be done on a cold static engine to avoid any battery charging gas which may otherwise be present.
Seems a lot of messing around which is why it remains a thought . 2010GS Auto ex Celeb, Santorini Black, 2011 facelift , spoiler, spats, mudflaps, LED footwell lamps, Witter detach,
Other cars:-
1958 & 1959 Austin J40 Pedal Cars under restoration (I make many J40 parts)
If you have an Austin J40 or Pathfinder Pedal Car looking for a new home pls PM me.
2009 Meriva

The four glowplugs go into a plug/socket deep down in the bowels of the engine block with one wire eventually returning to the glowplug relay, which is item number '48' in the battery junction box.

Click image to enlarge

Click image to enlarge

I bought a 2009 engine that came complete with full engine harness and it is from close study that I made my previous statement. The four wires go individually to special relay which is 100% behind the secondary bulkhead. The wired do not join together.
The harness and engine are the 190 BHP engine version, maybe it's different to the 150 / 159 production engines electrics.
I still have all the 190 ancillary components including the big turbo available listed on the 'For Sale' section 2010GS Auto ex Celeb, Santorini Black, 2011 facelift , spoiler, spats, mudflaps, LED footwell lamps, Witter detach,
Other cars:-
1958 & 1959 Austin J40 Pedal Cars under restoration (I make many J40 parts)
If you have an Austin J40 or Pathfinder Pedal Car looking for a new home pls PM me.
2009 Meriva

It's at what point in the loom that the 4 cores become 1 but eventually it reaches the relay as 1 core.
I looked at the three issued circuit diagrams up to MY11 and they are all like this, so I don't know. The first pic shows the plug & socket with the 4 cores and then further on jointed together at some point before continuing to the battery JB on pin 20 of the loom plug.

could you not remove the relay and test on OHMS the resistance ,each glow plug will have a set resistance and i presume wired in a parallel circuit,i think if all resistance the same value, the total OHm should half the smallest resistance if all the same(i think) or place an ammeter and take the reading on start up, read somewhere it should be close to 50amp

One good 'glowplug' should have a resistance of < 1 ohm so it would be extremely difficuly to measure with any accuracy four in parallel, it would'nt even tell you if one of them was open circuit at the relay end.

As you mentioned, the easiest way might be to measure the total amps drawn at about 12 amps per glowplug.

I completely disagree with the gaskets, they cost hardly anything. If you have it stripped down its worth replacing the gaskets!

A message in reply mainly to EYorkshire but maybe Alex will see it and comment.
I have checked again my spare FL2 harness that came with the 2009 190BHP engine I bought.
The 4 Glow separate Glow wires pass from the mini cyl head harness into the connector underneath the electric throttle. They continue their way through the harness separately till they terminated at a rather large relay type socket which has two 'over large' main feed cables, and six smaller ones, four are the Glow individual wires and two of the standard smaller car wires. The connector is big, black and has a pale blue side fittment, (if I only knew how to add photos to the forum; pls can somebody PM me). This big connector socket can only go behind the secondary bulkhead plate under the scuttle together with the engine ECU.
I can fully understand the wiring diagram EY placed on above however what I have in reality doesnt agree in practise. It really looks like a massive relay base socket.
If it wasnt so cold i'd go out and remove the Scuttle and take a look. 2010GS Auto ex Celeb, Santorini Black, 2011 facelift , spoiler, spats, mudflaps, LED footwell lamps, Witter detach,
Other cars:-
1958 & 1959 Austin J40 Pedal Cars under restoration (I make many J40 parts)
If you have an Austin J40 or Pathfinder Pedal Car looking for a new home pls PM me.
2009 Meriva

Just spotted Landy's comment
If you change Glow plugs my way theres no gaskets dismantled so none to replace / buy.  2010GS Auto ex Celeb, Santorini Black, 2011 facelift , spoiler, spats, mudflaps, LED footwell lamps, Witter detach,
Other cars:-
1958 & 1959 Austin J40 Pedal Cars under restoration (I make many J40 parts)
If you have an Austin J40 or Pathfinder Pedal Car looking for a new home pls PM me.
2009 Meriva

I agree I'm looking at it purely from a theoretical view whereas yours is 'hands on'
The layout is telling me that somewhere those 4 wires end up as one and this may well be that 'big lump', but where in the loom I don't know and the only relay shown is in the battery JB.
I'm certainly up for enlightenment if it is different from my interpretation

@fredastaire

Do you have the harness you're talking about in your hands, removed from the engine?
Maybe the 190 harness is somewhat different?...

The way to post pictures is here:
http://www.freel2.com/forum/topic4.html
http://www.freel2.com/forum/topic5.html

I've now compared my 158bhp car and the 190bhp harness that came with the engine I bought.
They are different! The 190bhp has a relay behind the false bulkhead under the plastic scuttle in front of the windscreen. It's a 4 pole relay.
The 158bhp standard engine in my car has the glow relay in the engine bay fuse box all as per the diagrams in above replies.
I wonder now where the 4 individual glow wires meet up together?
Regards to all 2010GS Auto ex Celeb, Santorini Black, 2011 facelift , spoiler, spats, mudflaps, LED footwell lamps, Witter detach,
Other cars:-
1958 & 1959 Austin J40 Pedal Cars under restoration (I make many J40 parts)
If you have an Austin J40 or Pathfinder Pedal Car looking for a new home pls PM me.
2009 Meriva