I bought my truck from a guy, who I'm finding out, took many shortcuts in wiring and doing things in general on this truck (bypassed brake lights in order to rig a tow wiring harness).

The previous owner at one point rigged up a manual glow switch (not a bad idea). Now the exact reason why he did is a bit of a puzzle. I don't know if he did it to get a longer glow plug cycle or just because the glow plug solenoid was not working and needed to bypass it...or both? In any regards, he must have not had a heavy duty switch as he just left a red and black wire dangling underneath.

You can clearly see that he is running both wires off/from the glow plug controller/solenoid. Question is should I just get a better heavy duty switch and leave as is? Right now, I turn the key and get the "WAIT" light and I have to touch both wires together and the truck will fire up, else it will not. I do hear what is a cycling sound (thunk) and then see the battery meter jump up into normal range after the clunk. Seems almost as if the controller is working. I do notice that the wires get hot very fast like within 5-7 seconds. Should I run heavier gauge wires? The current wires are not too thin, and actually look thick (heavier gauge).

I welcome any comments and or suggestions. Thanks in advance. http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/images/smilies/help.gif

The reason they are getting hot is because the red wire from the GP relay is HOT! You don't want that much current running into the dash, big fire hazard, especially with the wires dangling.
disconnect the batteries, remove the two heavy wires from the relay and put just the factory ones back in place. If your glow times are too short, He may have just put the wrong plugs in (60g) and replacing them with 11gs will fix it.
If you do decide to hook up a manual switch, you want to do it on the low current side so all your doing is engaging the relay from the dash, not carrying the full current load.

The glow plug controller probably failed so he went to manual operation (as I did).

The glow plug relay doesn't require much current to operate. The relay is just a coil that operates like a magnet to put the contacts together in the solenoid to furnish current (high) to the glow plugs. The wires to the solenoid are 10 gauge and the wires to the relay are much smaller (probably 16 gauge). I have my relay wires going into my dash plus a lot more that require 10 gauge wires.

If you are just touching the wires together under the dash then yes the wires will get hot due to their less than solid contact. Put in a good toggle switch that is spring loaded to off so it doesn't get bumped to the on position.

CJ, I've heard some guys on other boards use an old Ford Pinto switch. I think I'll swing down to the local trucker shop and maybe look for a heavy duty switch. I found the old one that the prior owner used....it looked pretty cheap, I'm guessing that's why he ditched it. I'm guessing that since it is setup for a manual bypass, that I should just leave it as is...right? I mean down in my area, it is like summer 11 months out 12! A cool front for us down here is 90! Thanks in advance.

I installed a spare used 1972 Ford Pinto starter relay/solenoid when my GM unit failed abour 15 years ago. Any small car engine starter relay/solenoid should work as a starter uses more current than the 8 glow plugs.